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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25773472">Showing</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elphen/pseuds/Elphen'>Elphen</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Nesting [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman &amp; Terry Pratchett</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angels Nesting, Angry Aziraphale (Good Omens), Anxious Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Communication, Crowley Has Self-Esteem Issues (Good Omens), Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Crowley's Flat (Good Omens), Crowley's Nest, Crowley's Plants (Good Omens), Crowley's issues, Crowley's plants as nesting attempt, Hurt Aziraphale (Good Omens), Kind Aziraphale (Good Omens), M/M, Nesting, Nesting Behaviour, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pained Aziraphale, Panicking Crowley (Good Omens), Pre-Canon, Self-Esteem Issues, Sequel, Worried Crowley (Good Omens), and worried, bending the rules of nesting, but only because he's hurt, fearful Crowley, making a new beginning, previous nesting attempts, slight AU</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 06:48:22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>20,997</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25773472</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elphen/pseuds/Elphen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Crowley made a nest for Aziraphale. Several, in fact, before he tore them back down. Only, one of them had somehow managed to have some remnants survive. That would be fine, except...<br/>Except that Aziraphale wants to see it, as he's been promised, and Crowley is scared of what his beloved angel will think of it once he sees it. Will think of him.<br/>What's a demon to do but try and think of ways of avoiding it without actually breaking his promise?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Nesting [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1534493</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>115</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>129</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. He's promised him</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Another installment. I did wonder about whether to leave well enough alone after the last one, but the thought of this wouldn't leave me, so, with a bit of nerves, here you go. Hope you'll like it. I still like writing for this 'verse, at least.<br/>Posting this on the anniversary for when I started this whole thing seemed...something. Appropriate? Silly? I don't know.<br/>As always, though I don't say it, this isn't beta'ed. All mistakes are mine.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He was nervous. That in itself wasn’t surprising, perhaps, given the situation and what had gone before. But even so, he hadn’t expected to be quite as nervous as this.</p>
<p>Had he been asked before, he would’ve…no, to be perfectly honest, there had never been a point where he’d been entirely calm about it, and certainly never unaffected.</p>
<p>If he had, he would hardly have torn the result of it completely down the moment he’d noticed what he’d been doing, would he? Every single time it happened.</p>
<p>Except…except this one. This single proper remnant of one, rather than tiny titbits or single items, that he couldn’t bring himself to tear down. Not only that, but he had actively kept it and even cared for it. In his own way, anyway, and possibly not one that any other gardener would think to employ.</p>
<p>It had worked, hadn’t it? Weren’t they the most luscious and verdant greenery you could hope to see?</p>
<p>That in itself, that he’d done so much to keep them not only alive but as perfect as they were, was somewhat puzzling, when he stopped to think about it. Which he rarely if ever did. Quite deliberately, almost pointedly so.</p>
<p>But now, in this situation, he couldn’t help but stop and think about it. Mainly because it would no longer be only him who saw it and could wonder about it, and therefore also judge.</p>
<p>No, it wasn’t just that someone else would see, was it? It was the very real, very unnerving fact that it would be <em>Aziraphale </em>who would be coming to see it. To judge it.</p>
<p>The very person who it had been built for in the first place. The only one he had never wanted to see this remnant, the remains of a nesting attempt that he ought to have thrown out entirely but had instead chosen to care for.</p>
<p>That showed just how pathetic Crowley was. How pitiful and damaged. How broken, at a fundamental level, however much he had worked with it together with Aziraphale. Those tendrils ran deep and while in general he’d got better about it, when the right, or wrong circumstances presented themselves, such as here, now, with the remnants in his own flat, they were still capable of rearing their heads.</p>
<p>Especially when it came to something like this.</p>
<p>How much he had been unable to accept the reality of the situation and had instead clung to a castle in the air of it one day, someday becoming the truth, the reality, even harder to let go of with the addition of nesting elements that he had finally been unable to resist giving into, however much he had valiantly tried over the years.</p>
<p>That he had in fact had that very flight of fancy become very tangible, much beloved reality didn’t do much, if anything, to alleviate that feeling of being pathetic in the wish for it. Especially in having kept a reminder of that very wish for so long.</p>
<p>So, in light of all of that, that he was nervous to the point of being frightened that Aziraphale should come to see it was perhaps not so surprising after all.</p>
<p>Not that he wanted the other to know about this state of affair, of course. It was bad enough that he’d been such a mess on previous occasions, however kind, caring and understanding Aziraphale had been at those times. Which he had been, he wasn’t going to deny or diminish that, and he loved him for being all of those things. Nor did he doubt his sincerity.</p>
<p>More than once, he even wished that he had never ever let his tongue slip – though the number of times that particular occurrence had happened, it’d be frankly ridiculous if he had to do that for all of them – and revealed he himself had nested.</p>
<p>Mostly because he knew that this exact thing would happen once the angel knew of it. That once he did, it was only a matter of time. Oh, he’d asked nicely about it and was very understanding and patient, too. Crowley didn’t doubt his sincerity, either.</p>
<p>But that didn’t alter the fact that he wanted to see it. For whatever reason, one which Crowley really couldn’t fathom however much he tried to, Aziraphale was quite intent, once the idea had been brought to him, on seeing those remnants.</p>
<p>After all, Crowley had seen Aziraphale’s, hadn’t he?</p>
<p>Crowley had tried to argue that there was no need for him to see it. Or rather, there was no need to see it again, as he’d already been to the flat once and had seen what was in it. Including the plants, though he didn’t voice that part out loud.</p>
<p>Aziraphale had countered that that was hardly the point and that besides, his focus had been quite another at the time, what with Crowley being ill and all that, and so it hardly could be said to count as a proper look.</p>
<p>The ginger had opened his mouth to mention that he hadn’t been ill but had thought better of it in time.</p>
<p>He unfortunately didn’t have any better, or even any other, arguments as to why Aziraphale shouldn’t get a proper look at the remnants that he hadn’t thrown out, and so they had agreed that the coming Wednesday, after Aziraphale had closed the shop for the day. If he had it open at all, of course.</p>
<p>Did it even matter? Was there any of the plants left from that initial nestbuilding, anyway? It was hardly as though he was particularly overbearing or sparing towards the plants that failed to live up to his standards of perfecting.</p>
<p> And if there weren’t any plants from that time left, did it then count as part of the nest at all? Surely, it should only count if they had survived. Otherwise, it wasn’t a remnant but a mere copy of a remnant, at most.</p>
<p>Something ran in the back of his mind. Another piece of text, of a kind that he most certainly would never be inclined to read.</p>
<p><em>‘This is my family's axe. We have owned it for almost nine hundred years, see. Of course, sometimes it needed a new blade. And sometimes it has required a new handle, new designs on the metalwork, a little refreshing of the ornamentation . . . but is this not the nine hundred-year-old axe of my family?</em>’</p>
<p>It was the fact that he could remember that much detail in the quote as much as anything that surprised him. The fact that it’d been kept in the back of his mind he wasn’t quite as surprised by, not when he had evidence of it happening before.</p>
<p>He really ought to convince Aziraphale to read to him again – and that wasn’t the point.</p>
<p>The point was that the axe was still the same axe that it’d been nine centuries before, even though everything about it had been changed over the years to stay a functioning axe.</p>
<p>Did that same principle apply to his plants? Why not? They still represented the original plants, whether any of them were actually left or not. Representations of the idea, the spirit of the plants and the nest, not a copy.</p>
<p>Which meant that what Aziraphale would see would also be that representation. As good at projecting his very real pitifulness as the original ever could’ve been.</p>
<p>Exposing Crowley as a hopeless, pining idiot incapable of facing reality.</p>
<p>It was only because he had promised Aziraphale that he could see his nesting attempt – which, apart from plants coming and going, hadn’t actually changed in layout at all since he had first made the nest – that he managed to refrain from going into that part of the flat and tearing everything down.</p>
<p>Or set fire to it. Fire was a very tempting option right then.</p>
<p>But he’d promised his nestmate that he could see and that was that.</p>
<p>No changes.</p>
<p>He almost broke a finger in preventing them from snapping.</p><hr/>
<p>Wednesday dawned bright and with that special kind of shine that is only possible when the sun shines down on a city after a heavy shower has left its wet legacy all over. Turning puddles into glistening mirrors and traps for liquid gold and any strip of metal into something that poised its glint, ready for duel.</p>
<p>The almost defiant cheeriness of it all only prompted Crowley to snarl at the view out of his window. Even with his sunglasses on, he felt the urge to shield his eyes from the positive glare of the sun reflecting off everything.</p>
<p>Of course, it would look like this. Of bleeding course. Which in turn meant that Aziraphale would be even cheerier than normal when he did show up.</p>
<p>It was tempting to cancel the whole thing. He would almost welcome an assignment right about now – or he could make one up. It wasn’t as if Aziraphale would know, was it? And he was a demon, when all was said and done. To lie was in his job description. It was his duty, almost.</p>
<p>But it would disappoint the angel and for what reason, exactly? That he was too much of a coward to let the other see the remains of his first nesting attempt? Wouldn’t that only add to how pathetic and broken he was to begin with?</p>
<p>Highlighting – no. No, Aziraphale wasn’t going to think he was unworthy as a mate because of it, nor leave him over it. Not after everything they’d been through. Crowley knew that much and hadn’t forgotten it in a surge of insecurity.</p>
<p>Wasn’t he bound to at least think less of him, though? For the unpleasant fact that he couldn’t manage to either stand by the decision to nest or tear it down entirely, whether that meant he was going to try again or not. That was the question, wasn’t it? One that Crowley wished he had the answer to.</p>
<p>Preferably, before Aziraphale came to visit, too. That would’ve been perfect.</p>
<p>But seeing as he was up early because of that blessed sun streaming in practically everywhere despite his every attempt to close and otherwise shut down light sources for when he slept – not that he hated the sun or anything, he wasn’t a vampire, he just didn’t like its smarmy grin bearing down on him like that – he had plenty of time to kill before the blond would arrive.</p>
<p>Plenty of time to try and find an answer to that question, then, wasn’t there?</p>
<p>But even though he did spend time thinking about it, he didn’t get any closer, to that or to any of his other questions and worries. If he hadn’t managed it yet, it seemed unlikely that one morning’s worth was going to make the difference.</p>
<p>To get out of his own head for a while, including ceasing to pace through the entire flat like a panther in a cage, as well as shouting abuse at random objects just to let off some steam, he fled outside.</p>
<p>He ended up at the nearest large train station, where he spent an hour or two messing up the time tables, then fixing them, then messing them up even more so that when people called with their complaints and their photographic evidence off their phones, of varying picture quality that the time table was either right or entirely wrong.</p>
<p>It made him feel a slight bit better about things, knowing that people’s annoyances and frustrations, their little curses and their low-grade ill-wishing towards anyone and everyone would all contribute to tarnishing their soul, far better than any proper Hellish machinations could ever achieve.</p>
<p>He was still a demon, after all, and there was such a thing as professional…perhaps not pride, exactly, but at the very least satisfaction.</p>
<p>Around half twelve he made his way back, figuring that, although they hadn’t actually made any agreement beyond the date, Aziraphale would wait to the afternoon to come by, in the thought that that way, they could make a night of it.</p>
<p>As though Crowley wouldn’t be more than happy to spend the entire day with the angel. All day, every day, really, if he was allowed to choose, and that it wouldn’t amp up the risk that they would be found out. Which it would.</p>
<p>That was another good reason for performing devilish deeds like that. It kept his hand in and occasionally landed him a great bonus, too, whenever the human managed to cock things up spectacularly. Which was more often than any sane mind could bear to dwell on, really.</p>
<p>But on the off chance that he would instead close the bookshop a little early, though whether you could call it that when hours were irregular, to say the least, Crowley had better head back.</p>
<p>He wasn’t going to leave him waiting at the front door, fashionably late or not. Especially not since Aziraphale might decide to let himself in, so as to save Crowley the trouble.</p>
<p>It was one thing to have the angel about to ‘tour’ his flat and the contents therein, including the nesting attempt. To have him do all, or even just some of that, on his own was considerably worse, and was not going to happen.</p>
<p>On the way home he passed by a patisserie, tasted the air with the tip of his tongue, and decided that he’d take some delicacies back with him. It wasn’t as though, even if Aziraphale brought things, too, that they couldn’t indulge.</p>
<p>And it had nothing to do with trying to divert the angel’s attention from the matter at hand. Most certainly not.</p>
<p>If it happened, one ought to think of it as a, a happy accident, perhaps.</p>
<p>As he neared the door to the building he lived in, he found himself slowing down from even his normal saunter. Even though he tried to push through and keep to the same pace, his legs would not listen and slowed down regardless.</p>
<p>He could also feel a slight bit of perspiration in the palm of his hands, making the grip on his bags a little trickier.</p>
<p>There was no indication that Aziraphale was already there. That was, he wasn’t standing outside or anything and Crowley couldn’t smell him.</p>
<p>Even so, this was it or at least soon to be it. Aziraphale was going to see his flat. Properly.</p>
<p>Knowing not only what was in there but what the significance of it was.</p>
<p>And he was going to, well, perhaps not outright inspect it but certainly study it quite intently. Which would only make it worse.</p>
<p>Oh, fuck. Could he still bail on it? Say that he’d forgotten that it was…</p>
<p>No.</p>
<p>He couldn’t. At least, he wasn’t going to. Because it wouldn’t be fair if he didn’t but more importantly, he had promised his angel that he could, end of.</p>
<p>The fact that he was nervous as all…buggery, for several reasons, was another matter entirely.</p>
<p>He tightened his grip on the delicate paper handles of the patisserie bags and marched into the building.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. A way around it?</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Crowley invites Aziraphale into his home but is still nervous about letting the other see. So nervous, in fact, that he gets a rather silly idea.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Sorry, I had no idea of how to summarise the chapter even remotely well and now I'm nervous because of it. Par for the course.<br/>At least you didn't have to wait for too long.<br/>Thank you to everyone still with me in this ongoing project &lt;3</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>By the time the doorbell rang, Crowley had paced the flat four times, had rearranged what he had bought at least twice, had fiddled with the chain around his neck umpteen times and had left nail marks in the marble of his table.</p>
<p>Once it did ring, he spun around, his heart beating hard and loud. He tried to calm it down as he more or less stalked over to the front door.</p>
<p>In the back of his mind, he was quite proud that he opened it calmly, for at least a given value of calm, and found Aziraphale standing there, looking…well, like he always did, of course, that was part of the comfort.</p>
<p>Did he look a little nervous? No, surely not. What would <em>he </em>have to be nervous about? If anyone ought to look nervous, it was Crowley. And he wasn’t. He most certainly wasn’t.</p>
<p>As the demon opened the door, however, he couldn’t help the feeling creeping up on him, fast enough to almost be called rushing, that this wasn’t just letting Aziraphale in for an afternoon snack and a chat. Or even letting his nestmate see where he lived in more detail, including some embarrassing parts of his past.</p>
<p>This was letting him in to see his nest.</p>
<p>Which was ridiculous. He had no nest. What he had was the pathetic remnants of a previous nesting attempt and that was it. There was nothing that was enough to qualify, even remotely, as a nest and yet…</p>
<p>Yet the feeling wouldn’t go away.</p>
<p>Not even the very fact that the nesting had already happened, that it had been Aziraphale who had been brave enough to nest and put himself out there rather than Crowley the coward, did anything to dispel the notion or the feeling.</p>
<p>If his heart had been beating at a canter before then it had just turned it up a notch to a full-blown gallop.</p>
<p>“Hello, dearest,” Aziraphale said, sounding as chipper as the sun was today, even if there was an edge of nervousness there as well, for whatever reason.</p>
<p>Unlike the flaming ball of gas – that particular star, God had very specifically taken charge of placing herself – though, Aziraphale’s cheeriness only made Crowley warm inside, regardless of all the nerves and other feelings that swirled inside of him right at that moment.</p>
<p>“Aziraphale,” he acknowledged.</p>
<p>He didn’t want to step back at all. Wanted in fact to block the entrance entirely, maybe turn the angel around and convince him that it would be quite the waste to spend such a lovely day inside. That he’d treat him to the entire range of ice cream available in the gelato shop the blond loved so much and perhaps a few more.</p>
<p>Anything that kept him from entering the flat.</p>
<p>So, of course he did step back, with a bit of a flourish to it as well, so that he didn’t seem reluctant to let the other in.</p>
<p>He had to fight his instincts all the way, though, as they screamed at him.</p>
<p>It struck him, in one of those irrelevant at the time thoughts that often come into your mind when you’re otherwise occupied, that it was a little odd that this hadn’t been an issue when last Aziraphale had been there.</p>
<p>Perhaps, though, it was to do with the situation then and the one now.</p>
<p>At the time, Crowley had been convinced that Aziraphale was nesting but for someone that wasn’t Crowley, and so was far less likely to see his own flat as a nest that could woo him. His heart was already stolen, by someone else, and his love deep enough that he would risk nesting himself, after all, he would hardly notice the nesting attempts of someone else.</p>
<p>Of course, that hadn’t turned out to be the case, something which Crowley thanked, well, someone, for each and every day. Each and every time he felt the chain around his neck slide or the crystal bump against his chest, really.</p>
<p>If it had been the other angel – hypothetically, of course, as they hadn’t actually existed, in the end – who had taken the risk of nesting, had started the courtship, as it were, then it might’ve been a different matter.</p>
<p>Then Aziraphale would’ve been the one wooed and, not unlike certain types of birds where the female goes from nest to nest to decide which was done well enough to be worthy of mating, could take a look at both nests in turn and pick the one he liked best.</p>
<p>Picking his nestmate and leaving the other with a rejected nest.</p>
<p>The thought that it had in fact been Crowley who had, in effect, been wooed warmed something deep and tight inside of him, only dampened a little by the fact that he had been far too blind to spot it.</p>
<p>But the point of all that was that it hadn’t been the mindset of an angel, or demon, doing the nesting, the wooing, that the ginger had been in at the time when Aziraphale had come to visit. It had been the mindset of one looking in from the outside, one might say.</p>
<p>The one who wasn’t even rejected because Aziraphale hadn’t known he could be a contender. Or so Crowley had thought, at least. But with that in mind, perhaps it was hardly surprising that he hadn’t had the same reaction at the time.</p>
<p>As for the present, it shouldn’t really matter either, though for a different reason altogether.</p>
<p>This wasn’t a nest, couldn’t be a nest, not because it wasn’t in a state to be called a nest, but because they<em> had</em> a nest already. Aziraphale had built one, in his bookshop, and Crowley had accepted it. Had exchanged feathers with the angel and had become his nestmate.</p>
<p>You did not get to re-propose, as it were. Not beyond what they had already sort of bent with the exchange of feathers, of course.</p>
<p>Nor did a nesting pair – and sometimes, he wondered how much of angelic nesting behaviour had intentionally been used as a basis for birds or whether God had just had a lazy moment and reused a template – get to have two nests.</p>
<p>If the old one was destroyed, for whatever reason, then yes, they rebuilt it, but other than that, no.</p>
<p>So, to boil it down, there was no justification whatsoever for what Crowley felt right now. Of course, that was hardly going to stop that feeling being present. That wasn’t how it worked, after all.</p>
<p>It did mean that his struggle to fight it was very real, though, and that it mixed in with everything else.</p>
<p>From an outside perspective, considering all that he was struggling with right then, it was a wonder that he hadn’t yet vibrated into the next dimension or the next life, discorporating in the process.</p>
<p>When Aziraphale put down the bags and small basket he’d been carrying the moment he was inside the door and went to give his demon a kiss, it helped to alleviate at least some it.</p>
<p>Then again, being near his angel always did that.</p>
<p>Crowley went in for seconds when they parted, just on principle, as well as a bit to put things off a bit longer, which earned him a chuckle and a small huff of exasperation at the same time.</p>
<p>Picking the bags back up, the blond looked around what he could see of the flat with obvious interest. Interest which Crowley really could do without.</p>
<p>“It’s very…minimalist, isn’t it?” Aziraphale remarked, and while that might have sounded like a slight, and probably would have been had it been someone else to someone else, Crowley took it as a wonder and a bit of mild incomprehension. Which needn’t be a bad thing.</p>
<p>“It’s modern, angel,” the ginger said with a small shrug as he took the bags from the soft hands, deliberately letting their hands brush. The day he got tired of being able to do that was in the far-flung future of never.</p>
<p>“Is it, now?” Aziraphale’s mild surprise sounded genuine. “I never had too much track with all of that, I’m afraid.”</p>
<p>“Really? You easily could’ve fooled me,” Crowley all but drawled, raising an eyebrow as he tilted his head first down then slowly up, to simulate doing an elevator-look – a bit of a tricky feat to otherwise pull off when his glasses obscured his eyes.</p>
<p>“Oh, ha, ha,” Aziraphale returned, though he didn’t seem particular put out by it. “You like how I look in my clothes.”</p>
<p>Crowley made a face in lieu of answering but at the same time, he moved close enough to slide a hand up between the waistcoat and the shirt underneath, taking a moment to revel in the warmth there and the solid softness beneath his fingers.</p>
<p>Perhaps there was opportunity yet to distract Aziraphale without technically breaking his promise.</p>
<p>It wasn’t that he wanted to disappoint the angel. Not at all. He just wasn’t ready for his beloved to get a proper look at just how pathetic he really was. Just how much of a pining fool he’d been and how pitiful and, yes, pathetic he was now.</p>
<p>He had given up on being seen as anything remotely cool by the other some time ago – or whatever the horribly outdated-for-anyone-but-Aziraphale equivalent was, he couldn’t recall – knowing that he could never recapture that, if he had had it in the first place, but he had hoped he could at least keep from being exposed as pathetic.</p>
<p>“I like what’s inside of them,” he said, with just the hint of a smirk.</p>
<p>He got a small pout for his efforts, and a look of consternation, too, so he added, “And the way they frame what’s inside, too, of course.”</p>
<p>The angel brightened up at that, the cheeky bastard, and tried to take the bags back from the ginger. Crowley held them up out of reach.</p>
<p>“Crowley, really.”</p>
<p>“My flat, my rules and I rule that you don’t get to mess around in my kitchen. Go and sit down where you sat last time. I kept your chair.”</p>
<p>“There’s hardly anything in there that needs a kitchen to – oh, alright.” The angel blinked as something seemed to register in his mind of that comment. “You…kept my chair.”</p>
<p>“Yeah,” Crowley said, shrugging with his voice if not his shoulders. He didn’t understand the note of surprise in the other’s voice and certainly not the hint of wonder. “Course.”</p>
<p>“You miracled that chair for me. It doesn’t fit with the décor at all.”</p>
<p>Oh. So, he’d spotted that, had he? Well, he could be quite observant when he needed and wanted to be. For better and for worse.</p>
<p>He didn’t answer. It didn’t really need an answer, did it? And that way, he was spared from embarrassing himself. At least as things stood.</p>
<p>Just as he’d turned around and was about to walk off towards the small but overly fancy kitchen, he found himself being practically wrapped in angel.</p>
<p>Not only that, he was kissed on the back of his neck, on the vertebrae just above the collar of his shirt – he’d taken his jacket off during one of his earlier pacing trips, for something to do more than anything. Then kissed again, to either side of the vertebrae.</p>
<p>“Angel…”</p>
<p>“Thank you,” the blond said, his voice quiet as he rested his cheek on the demon’s shoulder blade.</p>
<p>“Nothing to thank me for,” the ginger mumbled back. It was only a chair…</p>
<p>“Yes. There very much is.”</p>
<p>With that and a final kiss, Aziraphale let go and began to make his way down the small passageway from the front door to the lounge, for lack of a better term.</p>
<p>Crowley followed right behind him, bags in hand. In truth, Aziraphale was probably right about the food not needing preparation, but that was hardly the point. It was the principle of the thing.</p>
<p>The Principality of the thing? No.</p>
<p>That he got, and took, the opportunity to enjoy the, admittedly not too clear with the jacket and everything obscuring the sight, rear view, as it were, was just a little bonus.</p>
<p>He always did, whenever he could. There had to be some benefits to ‘get behind him’.</p>
<p>Then, just as the blond was exiting into the room with the marble desk, where he’d placed what he’d bought, Crowley remembered something very important.</p>
<p>The plants were visible from the moment you entered that room, clearly and prominently. You couldn’t miss them. Which meant that Aziraphale would spot them, too, and that he would…</p>
<p>Would he know, though? Leaving aside last time as irrelevant in the circumstances, had he actually told Aziraphale what his previous nesting attempts had consisted of in any detail? Suddenly, he couldn’t recall for sure. He thought he had but couldn’t fix it in his mind.</p>
<p>Maybe, just maybe, that meant he could claim it was only one or two of the smaller remnants from other nesting attempts, ones that had stayed not out of a sense of wanting to hang onto them, like with the plants, but mainly because he’d forgotten them.</p>
<p>The small bird statue on the pedestal, for one. That could definitely be something that fit that criteria, having featured in the third or fifth nesting attempt – the fourth was such a disaster that he’d not calmed until everything even remotely used for it was a pile of ash on the floor.</p>
<p>What couldn’t fit, despite its bird-shape, was the pulpit in the shape of an eagle that he’d gone back and rescued after he’d dropped Aziraphale home, though. That was quite precious to him – and not because of the trouble he’d had hauling it home – but had not featured in any nesting attempts.</p>
<p>It would’ve been an obvious thing to appeal to Aziraphale with, in hindsight, as a nesting centrepiece. But by that same token, given that he threw out the components of his nesting attempts, usually, it was just as well that he hadn’t used it.</p>
<p>The small bird statue could easily work, though, he thought. Or something similar.</p>
<p>If he could convincingly pull that stunt off, it would still technically fulfil the brief, the promise, without revealing the truth in all its ugliness.</p>
<p>Could he do that? Yeah, he could.</p>
<p>He would do anything to not disappoint his angel but at the same time, he equally would do anything not to go down in his estimation, either. Just the thought made something twist in the pit of his stomach.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I know it's another short chapter and I'm not sure anything's happened and I'm sorry. I will try to up either the wordcount or the upload schedule, hopefully that'll make up for it.<br/>I hope he's believable in his actions in this.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Keeping things concealed</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>While trying to appear normal and together, Crowley attempts to distract Aziraphale and keep him from seeing anything much and at the same time, keep Hell from calling in and seeing something they shouldn't.<br/>On the whole, he thinks he's doing well......</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you so much to everyone who's left me such sweet feedback &lt;3 You really are the best.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Quickening his step, he managed to bring himself level with the other just as he was coming into the lounge.</p>
<p>He slid to the angel’s left in the hope that he could be a bit of a visual barrier between himself and the plants, which was on that side, at least to some degree. That he always moved to Aziraphale’s left made it a bit easier to pull off, convincingly.</p>
<p>In any case, though Aziraphale’s gaze seemed to be focused elsewhere. In fact, on the food that had already been arranged on the table – that it had been sitting out for hours at that point didn’t make one bit of difference in its freshness or delectability, because Crowley expected it to be fresh – and the chair that the ginger had indeed kept.</p>
<p>“Oh, dearest,” Aziraphale smiled, pulling the chair out and sitting down on it.</p>
<p>It fit him. Like a glove, almost, except not as claustrophobic or suffocating as that analogy implied. Even the upholstery fitted with his general style, which in turn meant that it clashed horribly with the rest of the décor.</p>
<p>“I didn’t know you’d be bringing some stuff, too,” Crowley lied, “so I got a bit of everything you liked from the bakery.”</p>
<p>“Oh, it looks scrumptious, my dear, but then it always does when you find something.” Plump hands slid down the length of soft thighs, stopping just short of the knees and travelling upwards again.</p>
<p>Crowley grabbed one of them before they made it back up and brought it up to his lips, kissing it first on the back and then turning it around to kiss the surprisingly soft, callous-less palm.</p>
<p>“All for you, angel, always,” he said when he lifted his mouth away from the palm, looking directly at the blond.</p>
<p>His eyes and consequently his gaze might’ve been obscured, technically speaking, by his glasses, but nevertheless, he could see the hint of colour spread across Aziraphale’s cheeks.</p>
<p>This might be quite a lovely experience after all.</p>
<p>So long as Aziraphale was kept away from the plants, which he right now had his back to, and as long as Hell didn’t decide to call in, it should be easy to make it into the most fantastic day.</p>
<p>In that spirit, he stalked over to where the TV hung, a frown on his face. Was it time to get a bigger one? They kept making bigger and thinner ones, those clever little humans. Kept making all kinds of things, he was always fascinated to see what they would do next.</p>
<p>He kept those thoughts running in his mind to push down and squash the ones of panic of why he hadn’t thought of this before Aziraphale got here, why he had even allowed him to come when the risk was so much greater here and all those kinds of things.</p>
<p>It wasn’t perfect as a system, but even if it only helped a little, he was grateful.</p>
<p>What should he do about the risk that they contacted him? Disconnecting it wouldn’t do any good, as Hell got through regardless. Turning it to the wall would seem suspicious. So, what – ah. Of course.</p>
<p>Taking it off the wall and holding it in such a way that his body obscured most of the view any other demon might get of the flat if they should call while he did so, he made his way back past the marble table and into the relatively narrow hallway.</p>
<p>Not the one that took him past the plants – again, didn’t want to draw attention to them if he could help it and pushing the slab that was the door shut now would only attract attention – but into the one between the lounge and front door. That way, he could easily hear it if they should call him, but he could angle the screen so that they’d be able to see nothing of the lounge itself.</p>
<p>So that Aziraphale would be kept away, be kept safe from their prying eyes.</p>
<p>Hah. If it stayed at prying eyes, then he wouldn’t give a bleeding toss. It was the fact that it was bound to escalate to numerous, if not exactly creative, ways of torture and then onto discorporation or outright destruction.</p>
<p>Nobody was going to destroy his angel.</p>
<p>Still, as he worked, he couldn’t help but mutter ‘idiot’ and several variations thereof from across the millennia.</p>
<p>That really was a small, insignificant but nevertheless delightful boon of having lived through human history; the sheer number of names and otherwise unsavoury words they’d used towards each other that you could use.</p>
<p>Once the television had been placed, he looked around to see whether there were other things he had somehow completely failed to think of as potential spy opportunities.</p>
<p>It didn’t seem like it, he had to admit. There was his phone, of course, but with both his landline and his mobile phone, they could only hear him. That ought to be safe enough.</p>
<p>Even as he thought it, he could feel the nerves and the fear marching around his body, just beneath his skin, ready to break out at a moment’s notice if he let it.</p>
<p>“Crowley, what on earth are you doing?” Aziraphale asked as he returned to the table.</p>
<p>“Just making things a bit safer, angel, don’t worry about it,” he replied as, deciding to forego the kitchen after having looked into the bags and basket, he began to pull the items out.</p>
<p>Oh, they were going to have a spread and a half, weren’t they? Well, it wasn’t as though they couldn’t just store it somewhere for another time, if need be.</p>
<p>There were strawberries and…that wasn’t cream. That was whipped cream with lemon curd in it. Right next to what looked like caramel merengue nests.</p>
<p>Though Crowley could never even hope to make the connoisseur – others might call it gluttony, but he wouldn’t – that Aziraphale was or the keen consumer, he did enjoy food himself.</p>
<p>That there looked very delicious indeed.</p>
<p>A stray thought, more of a vivid image than anything and entirely unbidden, came into his mind at that; some of that whipped cream being spilled and landing, not on clothes so old that retro wouldn’t touch it with a bargepole, but on soft, warm flesh. Just perfect to lick up –</p>
<p>And that was a thought to be shot down right there.</p>
<p>Not because he didn’t want to explore that nor could he say that Aziraphale wouldn’t be willing to do it with him. In the time that had passed since they’d first got intimate, Crowley had learned that his angel was nothing if not a keen and interested student.</p>
<p>If it involved food, he probably would be more than willing to try it. Provided he got a taste, too, of course. Perhaps through a kiss after –</p>
<p>But now was not the time. Even if he wasn’t nervous as fuck about Hell contacting him out of nowhere, convincing Aziraphale that something other than the plants were the remnants he’d meant and keeping him from finding out that it wasn’t…</p>
<p>Well, if it wasn’t for all that, he might just try it out, if he was being perfectly honest with himself. Which, admittedly, was a rather rare thing, but at least he could acknowledge it. It had taken some time to get there, but…</p>
<p>“Crowley?”</p>
<p>A hand covered his, which was trembling just a little where it lay curled on the table. It was trembling mainly because of the effort to keep everything in check and not devolve into his unfortunately not uncommon by this point state of fear, if not outright panic.</p>
<p>“Sorry. Got a bit distracted, that’s all.” He smiled. “I’m fine.”</p>
<p>He took the hand on top of his and squeezed it gently.</p>
<p>After the whole snake-nest-protection incident, Aziraphale had become much more aware of and concerned about Crowley’s state of mind and whether he was influencing it negatively. He was clearly worried that Crowley would, not exactly devolve, as that was a tad too dramatic even for him, but certainly get into some bad thought patterns and be worse off for it. That or be too affected emotionally.</p>
<p>Not handle it well, whichever way he picked, and have another breakdown. There wasn’t really any better way of describing</p>
<p>He hadn’t said as much, obviously, but though Crowley was not always too good at spotting things or when he did spot things, to draw the right conclusions – just see the whole mess he’d made out of Aziraphale’s proposal through nest for confirmation of that – he had managed to notice that change in behaviour.</p>
<p>Then again, he’d made a conscious effort, too, to be better at noticing such things.</p>
<p>“I’m fine, really,” he repeated under the slightly narrowed, scrutinising gaze of the other.</p>
<p>“Really. And it’s not a factor that you have just ripped out the television and set it out.”</p>
<p>“I haven’t ripped it,” Crowley returned just a little indignant. “I’ve just – rearranged things.”</p>
<p>He debated whether to explain then decided that he ought to, really. “So that if downstairs should call, they won’t see anything that they shouldn’t.”</p>
<p>“Shouldn’t – oh. Of course. Silly of me not to think of that.”</p>
<p>That unintended twisting of a metaphorical knife hurt more for the fact that the demon had planted the knife himself.</p>
<p>He managed to contain the spontaneous grimace at that, though, and sat himself down in his own chair. Then he got back up and dragged it over to stand beside Aziraphale’s. It wasn’t the best way to sit and it certainly didn’t take the most advantage of the view but that didn’t matter.</p>
<p>Yes, so the Houses of Parliament wasn’t exactly a bad view, he had to admit – he’d opened the blinds just before Aziraphale arrived, for him to get the full view there. But it was a rather stark case of ‘been there, done that’. Guy Fawkes had been an interesting man in his own right and not terribly difficult to convince, either, for one.</p>
<p>Besides, if it stood between that, a building he’d seen countless times before and was unlikely to cease existing altogether, as not even the Blitz had managed that, and watching Aziraphale thoroughly cherish biting into a caramel merengue or a madeleine, then there was no competition.</p>
<p>The table wasn’t in an ideal position like this, but it would do. In comparison to the alternatives, it would certainly do.</p>
<p>He picked up a morsel as he sat down again but when the angel reached out for one of his own, Crowley shook his head.</p>
<p>“Nah, this is for you.” He held the morsel up higher and closer to the other’s mouth.</p>
<p>Aziraphale eyed the piece, unconsciously wetting his lip at the sight of it. Then he frowned lightly. “I’m perfectly capable of handling a piece of patisserie myself, dear.”</p>
<p>“I know. Your point being?” Crowley said as he raised an eyebrow. He was smiling as well, however. “I want to do this, angel, come on. Let me spoil you a little.”</p>
<p>He did want to, too, and he wanted it beyond the fact that it would continue to distract the angel from the purpose of his visit.</p>
<p>Getting the opportunity to feed him, even if it was just a bit and like this, had been something that had been on Crowley’s list of fantasies. Not sexual fantasies, mind, at least, not exclusively. Just something that he had always wanted to do but had never thought he would be allowed to.</p>
<p>Of course, that applied to a very long list of things but even so…</p>
<p>“Oh. I suppose that wouldn’t be fair of me to deny you that.”</p>
<p>With that, he opened his mouth and Crowley fed him the piece, which was thankfully no bigger than it could easily fit within a mouth. That was fine, that was good. Perfect, in fact.</p>
<p>Well, it was until Aziraphale upped the ante by closing his mouth not just around the piece of baked good, but around Crowley’s fingers as well, staying around them as he pulled back. Not overtly so, never outright salacious. Just with a care that suggested he was either entirely focused on the treat he was about to eat, or he was teasing the other.</p>
<p>When blue eyes slowly opened to meet obscuring glass, though, it became more apparent that it was the latter. Mainly, anyway.</p>
<p>Regardless of efforts, or Efforts, the whole experience sent a shuddering jolt of arousal through the ginger’s body.</p>
<p>Now really was not the time, though. However incredibly tempting it was.</p>
<p>It was probably just as well that he had his sunglasses on, even though he was more and more inclined to take them off whenever they were together. Not out in public, of course; there was no need to be stupid just because you were still very much in love.</p>
<p>Once the angel had swallowed the treat and let the poor demon’s fingers off the hook, as it were, he picked up something, seemingly without looking at it, and held it up.</p>
<p>“Would you allow me to return the favour, then, at least, my dear?” he said and the smile on his lips had just a hint of mischief that an imp would’ve been very proud of.</p>
<p>Crowley swallowed and licked his lips, then swallowed one more time. He nodded, not quite trusting his voice right now.</p>
<p>Of course, there was always the option of distracting Aziraphale entirely from why he was here with a little bit of…more intimate fun. It wasn’t as though he’d exactly been averse to it before, even if they hadn’t progressed to something a little more adventurous like this. Only a little more, though, and it couldn’t really qualify as kinky…</p>
<p>And that was still. Not. The. Point.</p>
<p>He wasn’t going to do it like that. Distracting him, yes, that was fine, at least for the time being. Convincing him that something else was the nest-remnants he’d come to see rather than the plants was…well, forgivable, at least, he’d say. Good intentions and all, which was fine, because the road to Hell was paved with frozen door-to-door salesmen instead.</p>
<p>It was always interesting when one of them accidentally thawed out.</p>
<p>But the point was that he wasn’t going to distract him entirely or prevent him from seeing. That would feel…wrong. Like he had broken his promise, after all, and though everything said that he shouldn’t care one way or the other, he did.</p>
<p>It mattered a great deal to him not to break his promises to his nestmate.</p>
<p>The crystal bounced gently against his chest.</p>
<p>For now, though, they could sit here and just enjoy a, well, a sort of meal together, and he could forget what he was trying to accomplish for at least the moment. He could relax.</p>
<p>He closed his lips around the half of the piece, a piece of pastry with pecan nuts on, he could fit in there – technically, he could fit a whole lot more, but there was no need to reveal that little titbit just yet – and bit down. As one normally would.</p>
<p>Likewise so with the second bite, which finished off the treat. But before Aziraphale could look disappointed or even put-out, Crowley flicked his tongue out and around, picking up all the stray bits of flaky pastry that was stuck on plump fingers. As he did so, he made sure to just give it a hint of wetness everywhere he touched.</p>
<p>It earned him a small gasp and a widening of the eyes, including the pupils, which was quite gratifying to see.</p>
<p>He grinned once he pulled away, though perhaps ‘smirk’ was more accurate.</p>
<p>Which was kissed straight off his face, so perhaps it was a draw rather than a win. That was just fine.</p><hr/>
<p>They spent some time just indulging in the food and talking about this and that, enjoying each other’s company, to the point that Crowley almost forgot why Aziraphale was in his flat to begin with.</p>
<p>He certainly forgot that he had taken the safety precaution of moving the TV out into the hallway.</p>
<p>That was, until an unpleasant and unfamiliar voice called out to him. Relatively unfamiliar, at least, in the sense that he had heard it before, more than once, but he hadn’t bothered to learn what demon it belonged to.</p>
<p>“Demon Crowley!” it called again, sounding rather impatient. Which would figure.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Something happened? Sort of? Well, cliffhanger to the rescue :)<br/>Hopefully speedy-ish update and content makes up for length.<br/>Would you let me know if I've forgotten any important tags?</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Check-in from Downstairs</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>When it rains, it pours, and sometimes it pours acid rain, just for extra flavour. Of course Hell picks that day to call in on the snake of eden and Crowley has to think quickly.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I am so sorry! I did not mean to take nearly a month to get this written and posted. I am trying but I'm also failing, I know, and I apologise!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Why the TV? He knew he’d taken that precaution, just in case, and been glad that he’d thought of it, especially seeing as this had now happened. But normally, when they did bother to contact him, usually to summon him back downstairs, they hijacked his phone or, if he was in the car, the radio.</p>
<p>Of course, they could use whatever means of technology they wanted, and sometimes he really could bless himself for providing them with that whole idea in the first place, he had just expected them to stick to what they normally did.</p>
<p>Fear surged up and broke through the, admittedly not exactly thick, barriers that he had erected in his mind and body to keep it at bay, a tidal wave pushing against wooden fences, flooding through with a force and volume that left him struggling not to drown in it.</p>
<p>Had he, had they been found out? Had they been following them and had worked it out? How exactly had they worked it out? They’d both been so careful, hadn’t they? Of course, things had changed between them, but it shouldn’t look like it from the outside. So, how could they possibly know that something was amiss?</p>
<p>Why else would they be contacting him, though? He’d done his reports, worked as hard as he always did and had even come up with a few new tricks, just to compensate for the time he’d spent with Aziraphale, so that they wouldn’t think he was slacking and come to investigate.</p>
<p>The point was, he’d done good. Well, bad. Good for a demon, anyway. There was no need for them to contact him right now and certainly not through a medium they didn’t normally bother with.</p>
<p>And the fact that they had just happened to pick only the second time that Aziraphale was in his flat didn’t help his mental state a whole lot, either.</p>
<p>He scrambled up out of his throne, the legs screeching as they were moved backwards at speed.</p>
<p>A hand reached for him and he could hear an intake of breath.</p>
<p>No! He reached a hand behind him, palm up and fingers spread a little, trying as hard as possible to indicate that Aziraphale should stay right where he was and keep entirely shtum.</p>
<p>They couldn’t know that he had someone else here</p>
<p>“Demon Crowley!” If it hadn’t sounded impatient before, it certainly did now.</p>
<p>What would they have done if he hadn’t been home? A horrible question followed that – did they keep that close tabs on him? But no, they couldn’t. If they did, or even just kept it on where he lived, then they would’ve been aware that an angel had been to his flat once already.</p>
<p>They would’ve been aware of his nesting attempts, too. One would’ve been grounds for investigation while the other would be grounds for instant capture and either torture or annihilation. Probably both.</p>
<p>So, they didn’t know and it should stay that way.</p>
<p>“Yeah, yeah, hold your horses, I’m coming already,” he called back to it, loudly so as to draw the attention to him and not to anything else in the flat.</p>
<p>Somehow, he had absolutely no idea how, he managed to sound entirely unaffected and even a little bit casually annoyed, as if he could only just about be bothered to be annoyed that they were interrupting him.</p>
<p>Suddenly, just as he was about to open the door to the small hallway, he found that he was not in his normal clothes but a fluffy bathrobe instead, though thankfully in his usual colour scheme, the belt of it very carefully tied. His skin was damp, his feet were bare, and his hair was wet, to the point of almost dripping.</p>
<p>He held an equally fluffy, equally black towel in his hands. Aziraphale had let him keep his sunglasses on, though, which he was grateful for. Yes, so other demons were perfectly aware of what he looked like – his eyes were far from the strangest ones to be found in Hell, after all – but he wasn’t ready to be exposed like that.</p>
<p>It had come to a point where his glasses were more for his own benefit, to keep the world out, than it was to keep people in the dark, aha, about his nature. Not that he had come to that realisation himself yet, or at least not the full extent of it.</p>
<p>Reminding himself to thank Aziraphale afterwards for his quick thinking and solution and struggling to keep his fear from overwhelming him and taking the reins from him, he pulled the door open and closed it immediately behind him, hoping desperately that nothing was seen.</p>
<p>“Demon Crowley, where were you?” the demon on the other end of the screen demanded. The large grasshopper on top of its head clicked its mandibles at him in reflection of the obvious irritation at being kept waiting.</p>
<p>“Taking a shower, what does it look like?” he said as he brought the towel up to rub at the back of his neck.</p>
<p>“You do not need to take showers; you are a demon,” the grasshopper-demon said, covering its confusion with a sneer.</p>
<p>“And a demon who has to fit in with humans on a regular basis if he’s to successfully tempt them.”</p>
<p>“They are not to know.”</p>
<p>“If you only ever smell of aftershave or perfume and not even a whiff of soap or shampoo, they’re going to be suspicious. At least nowadays. Or they’ll just steer clear, if they think you’re actually dirty. Suspicious humans are more…well, it just…greases the way, you know.”</p>
<p>Taking a deep breath to keep from screaming or doing something stupid, he pushed his luck. As he moved the towel to dry the middle and front of his hair, he asked, as casually as possible, “What do you want? I’m busy here.”</p>
<p>“Clearly.” The other demon gave him a look that it evidently thought was a condescending, superior look.</p>
<p>It’d need extra lessons to even get close.</p>
<p>“Excuse me, are you the one who’s just made sure that several business deals just fell through due to their important players failing to turn up at all because they were stuck in traffic the entire day? Which means that they’ll turn to riskier and dirtier means to get their deals to go through to their satisfaction.”</p>
<p>Which, when that did in fact yield the desired result would make them far more likely to do it like that next time, too, and soon enough, they wouldn’t know how to do a deal without it being at least a little bit dirty.</p>
<p>And the best part? It’d be gradual, yes, but that very graduality would ensure that they wouldn’t even see that they’d slipped. Not until they were up to their necks in it.</p>
<p>It might sound a little hyperbolic, to think that such a small thing could snowball and cause that much on its own. But it was hardly the first time he’d done it, or something like it, and he knew that it really did, almost without fail, yield such results. Not in everyone all the time, obviously, but even so, quite often. Certainly, it was more than enough to justify it.</p>
<p>That that wasn’t the reason he had done it was another point entirely and rather irrelevant. He was just immensely grateful that his need to find a way to handle his nerves could be spun into something useful.</p>
<p>The fear that this was only a prelude to a comment about Aziraphale, a strong hint that they knew what was going on and wanted to let him know before they began to pursue him, just for that extra flavour of nastiness, kept him from feeling pleased with himself.</p>
<p>He saw the other demon open its mouth to argue, then, closing it again, glared at him. Its mouth worked for a moment as it tried to regain control of the situation and why it had called in the first place.</p>
<p>“Demon Crowley,” it all but spat.</p>
<p>It took everything Crowley had not to visibly stiffen at that and if it couldn’t now be detected that he was sweating slightly, it was only because he was still damp from his impromptu ‘shower’.</p>
<p>He did manage to turn his blowing out of breath into an impatient sigh, though. Which was a bit of an achievement, given the current placement of his heart.</p>
<p>“Yes?”</p>
<p>“You have – “the other demon looked down at its papers, as though to confirm that it had indeed read things right – “been given a commendation for outstanding work.”</p>
<p>Was that all? That couldn’t be all. They didn’t call him, by television, just for that, did they? Usually that just showed up or they phoned him if need be. Or just pushed the thought directly into his mind, that was still incredibly creepy when they did that.</p>
<p>It didn’t specify what that commendation was for, either, but then again, that wouldn’t have been the first time. Sometimes they did a sort of medley, in a particularly ‘good’ and productive year, and ‘fortunately’, if you could call it that, Crowley got the praise for a good deal of it.</p>
<p>Dropping the towel, he started to bow in thanks, but the other demon held up a hand to signal that it wasn’t done yet.</p>
<p>“In light of your recent productivity, it has been decided that – “Please don’t let them say that they’re calling me back permanently or that they’re sending someone up to monitor me, please! – “you will report back to deliver a seminar on effective corruptions.”</p>
<p>“O…kay…I mean, thank you. Thank you very much for the opportunity.”</p>
<p>Grovelling to this toad, well, insect, anyway, even just a little didn’t sit right at all, but he’d probably already pushed his luck as it was. No, he knew he had, and he wasn’t going to risk anything further, not when it had gone well so far, and he had an angel just on the other side of the door.</p>
<p>Talk about things not going the way he’d expected them to today.</p>
<p>There was one question, though.</p>
<p>“When is it?” he said, only barely managing to swallow the ‘ehm’ that had wanted to settle onto the start of the sentence.</p>
<p>“We will contact you with further details. Ensure that you are prepared when we do.”</p>
<p>With that, the TV shut off.</p>
<p>He would’ve snarled or at least sneered at it, if he wasn’t feeling so relieved.</p>
<p>Unless…unless that was just an excuse to get him down there to – no. No, that was the fear and panic talking, nothing more. He had got to a point mentally where he could at least recognise that, even if he couldn’t combat it well enough for it not to surface at all.</p>
<p>Why would they bother with a ruse like that when they could command him down there? Or even just grab him whenever they liked?</p>
<p>It wasn’t as though sophistication was exactly one of the watchwords of the infernal regions, he would have to admit. Though even so, he couldn’t help but be suspicious of why he would be singled out for something like that. Unsophisticated or not, Hell most certainly wasn’t known for their helpful and cooperative attitude.</p>
<p>It wasn’t as though Heaven was a lot better in that respect, of course, but the backstabbing up there was a bit more…stylish? Yeah, that felt about right.</p>
<p>He would have time to prepare mentally, though. Hadn’t he held a presentation for them back in the…when had the M25 been built, anyway? But back at that time, he’d held a projector presentation to explain – oh, crap, he’d just remembered what he’d been wearing at the time. Completely irrelevant but nevertheless, it popped into his mind.</p>
<p>Point was, it wasn’t unprecedented for him to do something along those lines, even if it wasn’t exactly the same thing. Ergo, not something to worry about.</p>
<p>At least for the moment, he was safe. <em>They </em>were safe, which was the more important point, really.</p>
<p>He would take something happening to him if he could ensure that nothing would happen to Aziraphale, but he did at this point recognise that the angel wouldn’t see it in the same light. Not in the slightest.</p>
<p>Apropos of his nestmate, he should go back and say a proper thank you to him. Both for staying so very invisible and quiet during his conversation with the grasshopper-demon and, far more importantly, for his quick thinking and implementation of that thinking.</p>
<p>Though he could easily swap himself back into his normal clothes, Crowley found himself reluctant to change back into them. It was quite the soft, lovely material against his skin, not quite wool flannel but still, and it was something he’d been given by Aziraphale.</p>
<p>That last part was pretty irrational, he knew, but that didn’t stop it. There wasn’t even a hint of tartan in sight, either.</p>
<p>He adjusted the belt. As he did so, something occurred to him.</p>
<p>Something that he wasn’t at all happy to discover, to say the least; he couldn’t feel the metal of the chain around his neck nor the gentle pressure of the crystal against the skin of his chest. Nor did he remember the sound of metal clinking as it fell or hit the floor.</p>
<p>Of course, his attention had rather been otherwise occupied at the time but even so…and in any case, then he would’ve been able to see it on the floor. It wasn’t there.</p>
<p>Where was it? He’d worn it earlier. Nervous and distracted as he’d been the entire day, he was sure of that and he did not remember taking it off. He wouldn’t take it off it he could possibly help it and perhaps not even then.</p>
<p>So, where was it? It had to be here somewhere. He could surmise from its lack of presence that it hadn’t been there when he’d talked to the other demon. If it had been visible during that time, he would’ve been collected immediately and brought down to answer questions. Painful questions.</p>
<p>It might be that he could’ve lied and said it was remnants of a slain angel but that was possibly pushing it too far. They were at least likely to demand further evidence or even that he do it again.</p>
<p>Not now. That didn’t matter right now, at all. What mattered was finding out where the Heaven the necklace could possibly be and retrieve it.</p>
<p>He hadn’t lost it while he’d been out, had he? Oh, fuck it all, he hoped not. He could retrace his steps but the likelihood that it hadn’t been taken or kicked about or even outright broken or destroyed was small to say the least.</p>
<p>If he’d thought his heart had been a painful mess before, it was nothing to how it felt now, and his mouth was dry as tinder.</p>
<p>He almost tore open the door leading from the hallway into the lounge, looking about frantically.</p>
<p>If it wasn’t here…if he’d lost it, somehow, and he couldn’t retrieve it, then he, he –</p>
<p>Oh, Satan, please, no.</p>
<p>
  <em>Please.</em>
</p>
<p>Part of his brain wondered at the fact that Aziraphale not only didn’t make any comment as to his panicked state but didn’t even seem to be in the immediate vicinity to notice. It couldn’t make itself heard over the general screeches of his mind, however.</p>
<p>He couldn’t see it. Where had he gone? Why hadn’t he noticed that it was gone much sooner than that, if it had been lost as long as it seemed to? He’d thought he’d felt it earlier. But that might’ve been nothing more than the phantom sensation of its presence that you sometimes get when you’ve worn something for a very long time, such as a ring or a watch or even a necklace, and then you take it off. It is still, then, somehow, in place, and not only because of the marks it’s left behind.</p>
<p>It had to be here, though. <em>Had </em>to, because if it wasn’t –</p>
<p>Though Crowley wasn’t aware of it, he exuded his feeling of panic, his eyes almost sclera-less behind his sunglasses, and he was hissing just ever so slightly, too. Well, no, far more than slightly, to be fair.</p>
<p>That it was only a symbol and not the commitment, the bond itself, nor was it intrisically tied to i, and that losing it wouldn't mean that they were no longer nestmates was a knowledge that lived deep within him, immutable now. It did not in any mean he was okay with losing the pendant or that he could stop the panic over losing it.</p>
<p>Just because it weren't the magic talisman of their relationship did not entail it wasn't entirely precious to him.</p>
<p>“Crowley?” came a voice, one that was puzzled and wonderfully familiar.</p>
<p>The part of him that had been worried, if not outright panicking about arguably the significantly, if not outright exceedingly more important prospect of Aziraphale being gone, too, relaxed and quietened down, even if it wondered about the direction the voice came from.</p>
<p>“Nghk!” said the rest of the demon, not in a mindset to articulate anything, eyes scanning more and more desperately, not seeing anything, not seeing, not –</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I had a strange kind of fun writing Skype call from Hell, quite literally, and the ineffable nestmates' response to it. The panicked search...not so much. I hope that doesn't feel like regression, either, or that it's at least explained.<br/>I don't know, man...I feel like I'm bloody fumbling...but I try...<br/>Did you know your brain can hurt? Not your head, your *brain*?</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Plants and deflection</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Crowley finds the necklace but when he finds Aziraphale, he is in the one place he did not want him to be. What can the demon do? It looks like the angel might not know the significance of the plants but can Crowley be sure of that? There has to be a way.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>...almost three weeks is better but not by a lot. I'm so sorry. It isn't even a lot of words. It's been a bit of a time...</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There!</p>
<p>It lay, rolled up neatly in a coil of metal with the crystal nestled carefully on top, in the middle of the table.</p>
<p>One might wonder how he had managed to miss seeing it, when it was right there in front of him. However, that failed to take into account the fact that there were a lot of things still spread out on the table, a marbled surface, as well as the fact that sometimes, when you’re the most frantic, your brain and your eyes will shut down the border between them, with no information getting through.</p>
<p>The moment he spotted it, his whole body spasmed from the sheer relief of finding it, the muscles sagging just a little as they relaxed.</p>
<p>He didn’t run over to it but as he could cover the distance in a few strides of his long legs, the effect was pretty much the same. As soon as he could, he snatched it up and, checking that it was indeed real and his necklace, he then slipped it on with a drawn-out sigh of relief, his eyes closing briefly.</p>
<p>“I am sorry, my dearest, I should’ve thought about that.”</p>
<p>Crowley only fully registered Aziraphale speaking then and even so it took him a moment to understand what the other had said.</p>
<p>His head whipped up and around to, well, where he thought the angel was, only to find that he wasn’t there at all.</p>
<p>Panic mounting again, he tried to locate where the voice had actually come from.</p>
<p>When he spotted him, admittedly after only a moment or two, the relief he felt at finding him was countered and maybe even outright rose higher than before.</p>
<p>The reason for that was very simple; Aziraphale was standing right in the niche that the plants lived in. As if that wasn’t bad enough, he had clearly been looking at them or, knowing Aziraphale, he had been scrutinising them.</p>
<p>Which meant that he was bound to notice that they had indeed been taken care of, to a point that couldn’t be brushed off as ordinary horticultural care or interest.</p>
<p>Would he then be able to infer that they must’ve been the remnants from his nesting attempt? The very ones that he hadn’t been able to throw out and had left him vulnerable in the sense that it left him very much exposed.</p>
<p>Pathetic Crowley.</p>
<p>For a moment that stretched out painfully in front of him, he could only stare, completely frozen, unbelieving of what he was seeing, of what had just occurred.</p>
<p>All that effort, all that nervousness and worries he’d dealt with ever since they had agreed to do it, and struggles to keep Aziraphale away, keep him in the dark about the nature of the plants, and he had found them all by himself.</p>
<p>The moment Crowley’s back was turned, it seemed that he had steered towards them, like a toddler towards the one dangerous thing in the entire room.</p>
<p>Did he <em>know</em>, though? Crowley still wasn’t sure. It wasn’t as though they could talk back to tell on him – if they could, then nest remnants or not, they were all for the shredder, one by one – and he hadn’t placed them anywhere that was particularly essential to the flat.</p>
<p>If only he could remember for sure whether there were any of the original plants left from when he’d first built the nest. Or maybe the other, older plants had passed on the information, to warn the newcomers.</p>
<p>Did they pass information between them?</p>
<p>No matter. There was the chance that Aziraphale wasn’t any the wiser and had just taken the opportunity to sightsee a little in the flat while he waited for Crowley to finish his conversation with downstairs.</p>
<p>Interestingly, it had seemed like he hadn’t touched a crumb of the food since the demon got up. Which spoke volumes on its own and would, had it not been gripped hard by panic and worry at that moment in time, have made his heart warm incredibly.</p>
<p>But that chance was one he was going to seize with both hands. With everything that he could, really.</p>
<p>Hoping that he hadn’t paused for too long and thereby given his reaction away, or at least no more than he could cover it up and claim it was merely surprise at seeing Aziraphale with plants, he walked over to the other in a few, quick strides.</p>
<p>Aziraphale looked at his face but then his gaze dropped down to where the crystal swung and bounced a little more than usual, given its current relative freedom.</p>
<p>“I merely thought that, well, since it’s quite the tell-tale item should any other demon see it –“ and wasn’t that the understatement of the year? – “that it would be for the best that I moved that – but I should’ve given some proper thought to how it might seem to you and have warned you.”</p>
<p>“How?” the ginger asked, frowning as he subconsciously relaxed just a fraction. If this was what the other was thinking of, then there was hope yet. “You couldn’t have told me without tipping the toe rag off that something was amiss, one way or the other. It’s fine.”</p>
<p>“It very evidently is not,” Aziraphale replied, with just the hint of sharpness to his voice that Crowley wasn’t expecting, though perhaps he should have, “and I would kindly thank you, my dear, to not put out that kind of, of untruth out to me. Especially when it is done solely in an effort to make me feel better about something. More so when it is something that affects you that strongly.”</p>
<p>Crowley opened his mouth to argue, paused, then shut it again.</p>
<p>He couldn’t deny that Aziraphale had a point, as much as he didn’t want to admit it.</p>
<p>Well, he could deny it, and it would be another lie, one which Aziraphale would spot and not take it too well. It was something he did, try to play things off as fine when they weren’t. Often that was in an effort to remain cool but when it came to his nestmate, it was more to do with not worrying him.</p>
<p>He felt a hand grip his and intertwine their fingers.</p>
<p>“I should’ve found a way of letting you know – “</p>
<p>“Angel, it’s – well, no, it’s not fine but it’s okay. I get it. I really do, and actually, your quick thinking bloody well saved me.”</p>
<p>“Now, really – “There was a faint colour in the soft cheeks.</p>
<p>Crowley pulled his nestmate closer by the hand he held, smiling.</p>
<p>“Shut up and take the compliment, angel. You did, in more ways than one.” His smile turned into a bit more of a grin. “And no tartan in sight, either. Well done.”</p>
<p>Soft lips formed a small pout of indignance. “I’ll have you know that tartan is stylish.”</p>
<p>“In the Victorian age, maybe – or the 1990s, but I don’t see you as being able to pull off the grunge look,” Crowley countered, and the grin was now fully out in the open.</p>
<p>This was going well, wasn’t it? Very well indeed. There hadn’t been even the hint of a mention of the plants and they had sorted out the…the thing with the necklace. Everything was fine and would continue to be fine. All he needed to do now was get Aziraphale back over the table, sit him down and fill him up with tasty treats.</p>
<p>Then in an appropriate point a little later, he could point to the small statue on the pedestal and tell the story, which was true enough, of how that was the only remnant of one nesting attempt.</p>
<p>That one wasn’t exactly not-embarrassing, either, he had to admit.</p>
<p>He’d got it into his head that he needed to find items that were wing-themed or otherwise had wings or feathers incorporated into their design. It was a nest, after all, and it had to look the part.</p>
<p>In his defence, he’d woken up from his long slumber only recently, he was still finding his feet somewhat at the time. Or so he told himself.</p>
<p>Having the flat be almost entirely concrete hadn’t made it easier, though, but having had the idea in the height of the art deco period had. Birds of various kinds were very much in vogue at the time and so he’d ended up buying quite the number of inkwells, clocks, statues and other ornaments that depicted birds.</p>
<p>It had got to the point that he had an entire aviary in stone, zinc and bronze before he’d cottoned onto what he’d been doing. When he had, he’d spotted that not only had he picked birds galore, he seemed to have gone for the ones that had a pair of birds on them, especially if they were close and clearly a nesting pair.</p>
<p>The moment that had registered, it had run cold down his back. All the way down from the top of his skull to the very tip of his tail. Cold enough that he’d had to suppress a small scream.</p>
<p>Or maybe that had just been another part of the reaction at seeing it.</p>
<p>It had been a bit of a blessing in heavy disguise that he hadn’t been on speaking terms with Aziraphale at the time. Not only was it far easier to hide the reaction, including the jitters, that he wasn’t able to shake for some considerable time afterwards when they didn’t meet; the risk that he’d have dragged the angel to the nest to show it off before he’d realised just what he’d been up was lessened enormously.</p>
<p>One other thing about it that he hadn’t realised until later was that it had reminded him not only of what he couldn’t have – that he couldn’t ever bring Aziraphale here and show him his nest, because the angel would reject it instantly and their relationship would be broken, at the very least  – but of Hell.</p>
<p>Not in the sense of the claustrophobic closeness and dampness, but the fact that there were eyes everywhere you looked, staring back at you. They didn’t stare back with any sort of interest, or any other emotion you might think of. Instead, they stared at you because you moved and drew their attention. Or were there and their eyes had to be somewhere.</p>
<p>That didn’t mean they weren’t ready to pounce on you and tear you apart the moment the opportunity arrived. It was still Hell, after all, the original cutthroat workplace.</p>
<p>One might argue that Heaven was the same, just less literal about it but that was another, entirely separate discussion.</p>
<p>It had felt as though it was all closing in on him, though, and in combination with the certain knowledge that building a castle in the air would’ve been far more productive, it wasn’t any wonder that he had chucked it all out.</p>
<p>Well, not…</p>
<p>If ‘chucked’ was another way of saying ‘make the metal melt and the stone explode and then throwing the resultant mess out in one go’, that was.</p>
<p>He was not returning to Hell for any longer periods of time than he absolutely had to, and he was not going to have part of the sensation of Hell recreated in his own flat.</p>
<p>Afterwards, it had been a most welcome relief to be able to disappear into London and got himself as roaringly drunk as possible.</p>
<p>He hadn’t returned to the flat for a good while after that and when he had, he was rather surprised to learn that there had been a single small statue he’d overlooked.</p>
<p>It hadn’t been quite like the others, though, and well, the flat wasn’t exactly overflowing with things as it were. Put it into the corner somewhere and nobody would be much, if any, the wiser that it was even there, either.</p>
<p>Of course, one could argue then that that statue was just as bad as the plants and showed how pathetic he was to keep remnants of his nesting attempts, the ones that he had never had the guts to show to his intended mate, around like that.</p>
<p>It hadn’t been a central part of the nesting attempt in the same way that the plants had been, though, which was an important point. So was the fact that it had been shoved into a corner, pedestal or not, and been more or less left there for the many decades that had passed between then and now, almost entirely forgotten and decidedly neglected.</p>
<p>What hadn’t been neglected was the tiny garden of plants he’d made on a later nesting attempt. Instead, they had been looked after and nurtured, even if the treatment had been a little bit…rough. Compared to the statue, they had positively been cherished.</p>
<p>Perhaps it was that fact that did it. That made him actively ashamed of it, with a wish, such a fervent wish, to hide the evidence of his pathetic nature from his nestmate.</p>
<p>One thing that had been forgotten entirely, left to collect dust in a dark corner, versus something that had been nourished and, yes, abused, but nevertheless looked after to.</p>
<p>But both were nest remnants and so it was feasible for him to claim that it was the statue rather than the plants, even when Aziraphale had been so close to said plants.</p>
<p>To that end, he tugged at the hand in his, with the intention of leading the blond back to the table. This time, though, Aziraphale resisted the effort to pull him.</p>
<p>“Come on,” he urged, though gently. “There’s a lot of food still left. We barely got started before the toe rag interrupted us.”</p>
<p>“It’s hardly going to spoil in the next few minutes,” Aziraphale countered, just as gently. “We can stay here a little while. The view out is quite wonderful.”</p>
<p>“You can get that view from the lounge, too. It’s not as though it changes dramatically.” Another little tug, with much the same effect.</p>
<p>“Perhaps so, but the interior right here does make a lovely frame.”</p>
<p>Aziraphale let go of the ginger’s hand but only so he could wrap his arm around the slim waist and rest his hand on a bony hip. He even rested his head lightly against an equally bony shoulder, something which sent the demon’s heart jumping and skipping rather than the cantering it had been doing before. But in a good way, which was a nice change of pace.</p>
<p>Crowley would have to admit that was the case; the plants did lend a certain something to the view out of the window.</p>
<p>That said, this wasn’t what he’d intended. The longer they stayed here, the greater the risk grew of the conversation turning towards what he didn’t want it to turn to.</p>
<p>Perhaps, then, it was time to steer more clearly in the direction of the remnants. That way, it didn’t look as though he was putting it off or ignoring it, either, which would make it more believable that he wasn’t nervous about it.</p>
<p>“True. What you can’t really see from here is the thing I promised to show you. It’s – “</p>
<p>Aziraphale lifted his head to look at the demon more properly, slight puzzlement written all over his features.</p>
<p>“But I can,” he interrupted, voice somehow even more gentle than before.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Is it weird that his panicking is sort of rubbing off on me a bit? I hope it felt like anything happened in this chapter, at least, though I'm not at all sure. Again, I can only apologise and hope you'll stick with me.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Nest revealed</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Crowley tries to explain his nest and his feelings towards it...</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I know it's two weeks and a bit but at least it's not been longer, it's here and it's a little bit longer than previous. Yay?</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Feeling his throat constricting and his heartrate speeding up without permission, the demon turned his head slightly to see whether you could spot the statue from there. In the back of his mind, he knew you couldn’t and that even if you could, how would Aziraphale know that that was the particular thing he meant?</p>
<p>“No, you can’t,” he said, somewhat stupidly.</p>
<p>The arm around his waist tightened a little as puzzlement turned to soft understanding.</p>
<p>“So that is why you’ve been nervous ever since I arrived.”</p>
<p>“Nervous? I’m not nervous. What would I be nervous about? There’s nothing to be nervous about.”</p>
<p>“There isn’t but that isn’t how such things work, is it?”</p>
<p>That…hit a little too close to home, if he was being honest.</p>
<p>“Honestly, angel, I’m not nervous. I promised to show you what’s left of my nesting attempts and if you want to see that, we need to move back to the lounge. Whether you sit down or not is up to you, of course, but the food is easier to reach if you sit down. Easier to eat, definitely.”</p>
<p>There. That was pretty good, wasn’t it? Confident? And his mouth complied with what he wanted to say, too, and had more than once, even. Which, in these types of situations was quite the achievement and he was quite relieved.</p>
<p>It would still go wrong, of course, but he wasn’t going to think about that.</p>
<p>He wasn’t.</p>
<p>The angel’s brow knitted at that, looking a little as though Crowley had declared that numbers smelled sweet.</p>
<p>“Crowley, please don’t lie to me.”</p>
<p>“I’m not.” And he wasn’t, either. Well, technically, because the remnant did exist. That they were surrounded by another set of remnants were an entirely different matter and didn’t actually void his statement.</p>
<p>Of course, it would probably be counted as lying by omission, especially by the angel, but come on. He was a demon, after all, he was allowed to have some way of venting and getting around things.</p>
<p>Aziraphale’s frown only deepened as it grew thoughtful.</p>
<p>As it cleared and changed back into an expression of understanding, Crowley’s panic grew.</p>
<p>No, no, no – he shouldn’t be able to see – he couldn’t allow – why did his angel have to be that observant and that smart? It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t –</p>
<p>A kiss landed, on the side of his jaw as that was where Aziraphale could most easily reach in the position he’d placed himself in.</p>
<p>“It’s okay, my dear,” Aziraphale whispered as he pulled back. “I do understand – and please don’t try to lie again, even by omission. I believe you when you say that you have a remnant out there but it’s not…no, that’s not right. Not the right way to phrase it at all.”</p>
<p>He paused as he evidently thought about how he ought to phrase it instead, the frown reappearing.</p>
<p>Something occurred to Crowley as he did so; it wasn’t only the demon who had been working on his communication skills since they had become a nested pair. Aziraphale wasn’t as prone to it as Crowley, or at least, it wasn’t as pronounced, but he did have moments where he didn’t know what to say, said the wrong thing or reacted poorly.</p>
<p>It might be that the demon thought him as perfect as something could possibly be, but that didn’t mean he was without fault. Not at all.</p>
<p>One thing the ginger could acknowledge was that he’d been about as skilled as Crowley at putting his foot in his mouth on certain occasions, even if he hadn’t continued to shove the ankle and the calf down as well.</p>
<p>But he had evidently worked hard at it, too, and caught himself as much as possible, such as now.</p>
<p>It was another small indicator of just how seriously he took this thing, if everything else wasn’t already filled to the rafters with it.</p>
<p>“The one I can sense the most care from is not the statue on the pedestal,” he finally said. “Which, if I’m quite honest, feels more abandoned than anything, poor thing. That which to me feels like almost more a part of an unfinished nest rather than a remnant is, well, the plants.”</p>
<p>He reached out his unoccupied hand to softly brush against the leaf of one of the plants.</p>
<p>Crowley had to admit that he stood there, staring again. His mouth wasn’t open, and he wasn’t exactly frozen as before, but it was a close enough thing.</p>
<p>“You, you…you see them like that?” he managed to get out. There wasn’t much point in continuing to deny it, though, was there? It came to a point where you’d be more of a fool to continue to deny rather than come clean.</p>
<p>Though Crowley could admit, if only to himself, that he was a fool, he wasn’t quite that stupid a fool. Not anymore, at any rate.</p>
<p>Aziraphale pulled back a little again, his expression now one of gentle…perhaps not exactly surprise but wonder. Yes, wonder, that would do it, if mixed with a bit of bewilderment still.</p>
<p>He then moved so that he was directly in front of his nestmate and both his arms went around the slim waist, drawing him right up against the softer, rounder shape. Crowley almost automatically wrapped his own arms around the blond in a similar way, though slightly higher.</p>
<p>“How could I not see it as that?” Aziraphale asked. “You’ve even found a plant or two that I vividly remember from the Garden.”</p>
<p>You could distinctly hear the capital letter denoting just which garden he meant.</p>
<p>“The very first place and time we met. That time is seared into my memory, my dearest. It is very unlikely that I would not see the significance of that recreation.”</p>
<p>Crowley opened his mouth, was in danger of gaping like a stupid fish and quickly shut it again, so that he didn’t give himself away.</p>
<p>He…hadn’t thought about that. Not when he’d built the nest they belonged to and not when he’d torn it down and kept the plants from it. Nor at any other point, perhaps at least partly because he didn’t want to think too deeply about it in case it opened up something he wasn’t prepared to deal with. It was taking care of his plants in his own way and later, verbally abusing them to make them grow even better than they already were.</p>
<p>In hindsight, however, he could see the reasoning and not only that, he could see that, though unquestionably unconsciously, that was exactly what he’d done.</p>
<p>That revelation did not make his heartrate go down to a normal level, though. Not even close, because a thought fluttered into his mind almost immediately; didn’t that only make him even more pathetic?</p>
<p>That he had been holding a torch – to be much closer to accurate, it was probably better to compare it to the Jeddah Light, for both size and steadiness with which it burned – for Aziraphale since the day they met could hardly be seen as anything else, could it?</p>
<p>Why else would he, inadvertent though it had been, incorporate such a motif, significant in general and in particular significant to them, into the very nest he’d tried to build for Aziraphale?</p>
<p>The fact that he had been unaware of there being such a significance to it didn’t do a lot, if anything, to help matters.</p>
<p>Telling himself not to panic further, if that was even possible, he tried to pull away from the embrace.</p>
<p>He needed just a little bit of space, to try and deal with the embarrassment over not just having been found out like this, but having been ousted by something he hadn’t even been aware of – neither the significance of the plants nor the fact that Aziraphale could sense that the plants had been cared for.</p>
<p>Aziraphale tightened his grip at first but almost immediately let go.</p>
<p>The demon took a step or two back, almost backing straight into one of the plants in question. When he registered that, he had to restrain himself from turning around and shouting at it, possibly taking it straight to the shredder, for no other crime than having the misfortune to be placed in the wrong spot at the wrong time.</p>
<p>It was a struggle, but he managed it.</p>
<p>How he also managed to keep from turning away so the angel didn’t see him or preferably hid himself entirely, he had no idea.</p>
<p>“Crowley?” Aziraphale said, question in his voice. Concern in there, too, and love, though that was always there, now allowed to be shown rather than hidden or disguised as something else.</p>
<p>Not that Crowley registered too much of that right then.</p>
<p>“I never meant to…Aziraphale, I’m…” he tried to explain, at least, but he couldn’t get the words out. Or maybe it was more that he couldn’t get them to form at all. Not properly, the shape of them getting mangled on the way somehow.</p>
<p>So much for having more control over his mouth and what came out of it, eh?</p>
<p>Nevertheless, he tried.</p>
<p>“I didn’t…to see.”</p>
<p>“No, I rather gathered as much, dear.” There was a sad, slightly hurt edge to the other’s expression now.</p>
<p>Crowley shook his head. “No, that’s not…I didn’t but that’s…”</p>
<p>No, this wasn’t going a whole lot better, was it? Powering through wasn’t going to work. What he ought to do was something else entirely, wasn’t it?</p>
<p>He stopped, closed his eyes and took a deep breath which he then blew out slowly in as controlled a manner as he could. Then he took another breath and breathed out the same way.</p>
<p>A few breaths in, he felt Aziraphale take a step closer but without doing anything else.</p>
<p>The ginger reached out a hand and gripped the softer one in his, not hard but very firmly, nevertheless. His grip was returned, immediately and just as firmly.</p>
<p>Eventually, he managed to get things back under at least some semblance of control. It took a bit and by the end of it, his grip on the hand in his had tightened until hard and, had the other been human, undoubtedly painful.</p>
<p>But Aziraphale didn’t move away. Didn’t move at all, in fact. He stood there, not immobile but more akin to a pillar. A rock that Crowley could moor himself to as the waves slowly subsided around him. Not went away or became calm sea, but certainly slackened to manageable waves.</p>
<p>It helped, too, knowing that his angel was there, but more specifically, that he was there <em>after </em>he had seen the irrefutable and crystal-clear evidence to show and prove that Crowley was a pathetic, broken thing that clung to the one good thing in his life, the very person he had been in love with and had been pining for since they first knew each other.</p>
<p>He was still there. He hadn’t left or tried to skirt around the issue. Nor had he hesitated in gripping the bony hand as it reached out and grabbed his. There hadn’t been any platitudes offered and, as far as the ginger had been able to register – he’d been a little preoccupied, it had to be said – there had been no change in his expression.</p>
<p>Aziraphale had seen what he had seen and yet, he was still there. There to be with his nestmate and, without pushing him or otherwise dictating what he should be doing or what he should be feeling, helping him to calm himself down as best as he could.</p>
<p>Providing support.</p>
<p>Despite the calming waters, Crowley felt the salt of tears stinging his eyes. No. No, he wasn’t going to allow that. Not now, not today. He could handle this. He <em>could </em>and he <em>would. </em>Bless it all, he would.</p>
<p>Bless it all, too, but he didn’t deserve Aziraphale. Such a most perfect mate couldn’t…well, of course they could exist, he had seen first-hand what God was capable of producing – and on a timetable, too, with time left over for rest.</p>
<p>But such a most perfect mate couldn’t possibly be something that Crowley could deserve to have.</p>
<p>The thought of losing Aziraphale as a nestmate still made him physically ill, however ridiculous it seemed and how much he knew that he wouldn’t be dropped like that.</p>
<p>Even the fact that he knew it wasn’t going to happen didn’t make the fear of it magically vanish from his mind, much as he would wish it to, and consequently, it reared its head from time to time, especially in situations such as this.</p>
<p>He forced the tears away and, nails digging in a little into the softness of the other’s hand, managed to smooth that out, too, at least somewhat.</p>
<p>“I’m okay,” he said after another little while had passed.</p>
<p>When he tried to pull away, though, Aziraphale held on.</p>
<p>Not hard, not in a way that genuinely prevented him from pulling away. It was more a gentle indicator that he was still here and a reminder that Crowley didn’t have to pretend that it was okay or at least, that he didn’t need the support anymore.</p>
<p>Dearest, I don’t know what’s going on inside that beautiful head of yours, though I can venture a guess or two, none of which are happy things to contemplate.”</p>
<p>“I just didn’t want you to,” he paused, and felt the stirrings of things closing up on him again. Clenching his free hand out of frustration with himself more than anything, he forced himself to continue. “I didn’t want you to think worse of me. To…to discover the…the – “</p>
<p>“The truth?” The angel spoke very quietly and softly, with something of a sad tinge to it.</p>
<p>“Yeah…” Crowley said, looking down and away. It should have probably helped that he had his sunglasses on, given that he was at least somewhat hidden that way.</p>
<p>It didn’t.</p>
<p>“Oh, Crowley…” Aziraphale all but whispered.</p>
<p>“Sorry.”</p>
<p>“No, don’t apologise. There’s nothing to apologise for and there’s no…the only truth here is that you’ve done something beautiful.”</p>
<p>Crowley made a small face. “Don’t patronise me, angel. Please,” he added, to soften what he’d said.</p>
<p>“Patronise? Why would I ever…?” The question was asked with obvious confusion.</p>
<p>“To be kind. You’re always kind, especially in situations like this.”</p>
<p>“That doesn’t…dearest, I mean everything that I say, especially in situations like this.”</p>
<p>“It’s not beautiful,” he almost snarled, glaring as he looked around at the plants surrounding them, and they trembled in response. “It’s – it’s <em>pathetic</em>.”</p>
<p>He spat the word out, feeling much as though it had burned like acidic hellfire all the way up his throat. That was as much because he didn’t want to say it as anything to do with the word and the accompanying feeling itself.</p>
<p>There – was there anything left in all of this that he hadn’t screwed up on? He couldn’t recall it, most likely because it didn’t exist. The call from downstairs didn’t count, as he’d had Aziraphale’s help on that.</p>
<p>Besides, it had nothing to do with the situation with the nest, did it? apart from giving Aziraphale the opportunity to get up and walk over to the plants, discovering it. So, in a sense, he had managed to muck that up, too, solving one situation only to land himself waist-deep in another. That was, until he’d started to dig and got himself neck-deep instead, of course.</p>
<p>If it was worth doing, it was worth overdoing, wasn’t that it? He certainly lived up to that.</p>
<p>What he could do was try to, perhaps not exactly own it, but stand up and face it. Brave it instead of breaking down, like he had last time, or try to backtrack like he had before that.</p>
<p>Yes. He could do that or at least, he could try.</p>
<p>And hadn’t he made a good start of it by using the word? The word he felt, the one he knew that was true.</p>
<p>The beast was named.</p>
<p>In his own anger at himself, he almost missed the reaction of his nestmate; Aziraphale’s eyes widened to a degree that would’ve been comic in other circumstances but now only seemed to emphasise the shock that had taken over his expression entirely.</p>
<p>Shock and distress, really, and a few other emotions, too, all mixed together. Those two were the most clearly seen.</p>
<p>“Pathetic?” he echoed, and his voice sounded almost weak. Behind that faintness and vibrato, however, there was the hint of blazing fire that suggested new steel being forged, faster and stronger than the ones that had gone before. “How can you think to call it pathetic?”</p>
<p>“Because it is!” Crowley said and it was only not a shout because that ran the risk of making it come out with a side-order of choked tears, shaking and high. However, that didn’t stop it from having all the other qualities of such a shout. Nor did what fell from his mouth next.</p>
<p>“Because <em>I </em>am, to have held onto it for so long! To not have ripped it all to shreds the moment I saw that I’d built it and not only that but cared for it like the pitiful, pathetic – “</p>
<p>“Anthony J. Crowley, <em>stop speaking <strong>now</strong>!”</em></p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Well that...took a turn for the, perhaps not the unexpected, quite but...oh, I don't know anymore. It's probably better if I just write. I hope it at least was believable, and please...be kind to Aziraphale?</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. A solution</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Aziraphale is hurt by the implications and Crowley's word but at least his anger brings with it communication rather than anger and miscommunication.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I am so sorry it's taken me almost a month to get this out, and that I've failed to communicate that this is the last chapter. I wasn't sure it would be so I didn't want to say anything.<br/>As I've said elsewhere, I lost my dog to a spleen tumour (it was cutting off the blood supply, so we had to make the decision quick) and I've...quite frankly, I've been a mess. Still am not sleeping right.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The words came out of the angel’s mouth, somewhat loud, yes. But it was the loudness of thunder breaking right overhead; the immediate sound was loud and relatively high, splitting as it went, but the real noise, the true impact, was the deeper rumbling boom that pushed against your ears with almost painful pressure that somehow also went into your spine.</p><p>Such a voice said that though it hadn’t done any damage this time, it certainly could if you weren’t careful and clever about your next move.</p><p>It certainly had an effect on the demon it was directed at. He stiffened and almost reeled back at the same time, his muscles tensing up all at once and his mouth clicking shut so fast and so hard that it was little wonder blood trickled down his lip a moment later.</p><p>His eyes behind the sunglasses were as wide as the angel’s had been, if not wider, and they were slowly losing any hint of sclera. He’d clean forgotten to breathe.</p><p>Aziraphale wasn’t done, though.</p><p>“How dare you?” he said, and the rumbling could still be heard in the vibrato of his voice, proving that it needn’t make the utterer sound more vulnerable or weaker for it. “How <em>dare</em> you call yourself pathetic, Crowley? After everything, <em>everything</em> that has happened, between us and not, that we have talked about and shared, you still think of yourself as something <em>pathetic</em>?”</p><p>The thunder rumbled a little louder at that last word, so he took an unneeded, but pointed, breath before he continued. “And that merely, it seems, because you have the courage to not just have made a nest despite all the risks associated with it as well as your own issues about it, but to have kept a part of it even when you took down the rest of it – and you have done that with more than once, too, it seems.”</p><p>“It’s not courage when you’re building because you can’t control yourself like you should, and you panic the moment you realise what you’ve done, realise just how much you’re deluding yourself and asking too much, even in your head,” Crowley argued back, quite daringly and not at all seeming to fully comprehend what he’d just said.</p><p>Aziraphale’s eyes didn’t widen this time. Or maybe they did, but they then almost immediately narrowed while the rest of his face somehow grew…well, stony, was possibly the best word to describe it.</p><p>“Control yourself? You mean to say that you think nests are a lapse of control, is that it?” he asked, and his words should’ve been a flashing warning sign all on their own, quite apart from the tone of voice. “Castles in the air by their very nature? That you only build one because you’ve become unmoored from the realities of your current situation, live in a fantasy world that then send you crashing back down once reality reasserts itself?”</p><p>“What? No!” Crowley almost spluttered, feeling wrong-footed and teetering all of a sudden, even though his feet were firmly planted on the floor. Where had that come from? That wasn’t – “That wasn’t what I meant!”</p><p>“Wasn’t it? Because it surely sounded that way from where I’m standing. That you are inherently pathetic because you want to build a nest and show your potential nestmate just how much they mean to you, how much you care about them and want to make things just right for them.”</p><p>What? No. No, that – that wasn’t –</p><p>“That you are pitiful for choosing something that are not only significant, but one might classify it as pivotal in the relationship between you and the one you’ve built the nest for?” Aziraphale continued, almost relentless, the steel only solidifying in his eyes. “And that, although you cannot allow yourself to keep it the full extent of the nest, for whatever reason, you become more pathetic for keeping that one bit and for nourishing it until now, eh?”</p><p>Then he smiled and it was a smile that was as brittle as it was sharp. As a shard of ice on the point of breaking. Breaking from hurt, it seemed like.</p><p>“If that, all of that, is true…that that is what you believe, truly believe, then I do, much as I honestly do not want to, have to wonder what you really think of the nest that I made and why you have been putting up a front like that.”</p><p>Front? What front? He hadn’t been putting up any kind of front. Why would he – this was his dearest wish come true! The one he had been pining and longing for, for genuine aeons, which was finally, truly his. Or so he’d thought, at least. How could Aziraphale even begin to suggest that he was putting up a front in the light of all that?</p><p>That wasn’t what he’d meant by ‘pathetic’. He’d meant none of it like that. None of it, and now he’d gone and mucked everything up, for good, let Aziraphale think that he thought something as awful as that about the nest. Their nest.</p><p>If he thought he’d been teetering before, he felt as though he was hanging on by the very tip of his fingers. How had it come to this? He hadn’t meant it to turn into this at all.</p><p>“But that’s – that’s not – that’s not true!” he said, and it was a shout, this time, mainly because if it wasn’t, then he wasn’t going to get it out at all, he could tell. “I don’t – I’m not putting up a front. Any kind of front at all. I wouldn’t – I’d never – not with you, Aziraphale. Never with you. I don’t – the nest is precious to me, just like you are. Believe me, please.”</p><p>One hand was now gripping onto the soft hand in it with a fierceness that would’ve been bruising, if not outright crushing, had its owner been human instead of a supernatural being. The other had found its way up to clutch at the crystal, almost protectively, as though to prevent the other from taking it from him.</p><p>From annulling their relationship altogether.</p><p>“Please,” he repeated, the pleading naked and unashamed. “It’s so beautiful what you’ve created for me. For us. It’s our nest, isn’t it? <em>Ours.</em> It’s so beautiful and you made it perfect.”</p><p>Aziraphale’s face became a complicated mix of steel, genuinely touched and honest confusion. “I just don’t understand, then – how can the same thing, made with the same intentions, be pathetic when it’s one and not when it’s another? I’m afraid I don’t understand the difference, understand that line of thought at all and – “</p><p>“Because it’s me!” The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them but for once, he didn’t feel like hacking his tongue off the moment they were. Or rather, he didn’t exclusively feel like that, which was…not better but different.</p><p>“It’s me that’s the difference, me that’s the problem!” he continued, digging his grave deeper. He didn’t even know whether it was an entirely metaphorical one either, to be perfectly honest.</p><p>“I’m pathetic, not the nest. It’s me, but I tainted it, the nest, and, and I couldn’t bring myself to get rid of the plants, even though they’ve been a reminder of what I wanted so fucking much that I was afraid sometimes it would choke me into oblivion. But I couldn’t destroy them, because – “</p><p>Apropos of choking, he felt his throat threaten to constrict on him, but he pushed through it. “Because I kept thinking of you, and what I lost and what it all could’ve been and, and to have my own little garden here, that was…”</p><p>He swallowed as he crashed into the realisation, his whole mind having careened along the path his mouth had taken until now. “That was precious to me, and so was being able to think of you there, in the garden. “And I felt stupid and pathetic for wanting that, when I already had so much more than I could ever possibly deserve.”</p><p>Suddenly feeling weak and drained but somehow simultaneously lightened, unburdened, he released the grip on both the crystal and the hand in his.</p><p>Or rather, he would’ve, if Aziraphale had been inclined to let go, too, which he very much wasn’t.</p><p>Instead, he moved closer to the other, just a small step but the returned gentleness of that and of a hand placing itself gently over the feather-filled crystal added a bit more lightness and a bit of hope as well.</p><p>“I’m afraid to say that we don’t…that it’s not up to us to decide what we deserve and what we don’t,” the angel said, his voice back to being soft. It still held a brittle edge of deep and genuine hurt, but it lacked any thunder and any hint that he was going to go under the ice. Well, most of it.</p><p>He squeezed the hand in his, despite how much his own hand had to hurt from the previous abuse. “Oh, dearest, I’m so sorry. So terribly sorry to have…I shouldn’t have reacted like that or even close to it. Not when I know – and no, please don’t shake your head. I should’ve handled that much better, too. So extraordinarily better.”</p><p>“You did nothing wrong, angel.”</p><p>It was Aziraphale’s turn to shake his head. “I made you feel even more rotten about something you were clearly struggling with. Are struggling with, that is, and that is not acceptable. Not in any way, shape or form and for that, I sincerely and humbly do apologise. I just – when you were – it’s so beautiful, my dearest love, and to know that you’ve not only built it for me, but kept it for me, this most special little remnant that so encapsulates you…”</p><p>The hand slid from the crystal up to cup a bony jaw, but not before they’d gently taken the sunglasses off, one-handed, leaving Crowley’s still sclera-less eyes bared to his own.</p><p>“Considering all that, it’s quite frankly a wonder I haven’t discorporated because my heart most certainly feels as though it has melted – and I should’ve said that immediately when the opportunity arose rather than get angry with you, which was exceedingly, fundamentally wrong of me.”</p><p>Crowley opened his mouth again but as it was to protest and, well, sort of undermine what Aziraphale was trying to say, he thought better of it in time and shut right up.</p><p>They stayed in silence for a few minutes after that, one which was long and felt even longer with the residual tension that was only slowly breaking up rather than evaporating all at once.</p><p>It would be nice if something were resolved and it all just burst like a bubble of mist into nothing, with no residual issues or other debris.</p><p>However, that was so rarely the case that it might be easier to search for an actual panacea. But that only meant that you had to carry on as you had started, working through the residue and debris until the path ahead was cleared and everything was in its proper place.</p><p>That was the ideal, at least, and there is nothing wrong with having something to aim for, so long as it isn’t an excuse to beat yourself or others up over not achieving it, on a predetermined timeline or even ever.</p><p>“I don’t blame you for getting angry,” Crowley said, eventually, voice quiet without it being a whisper.</p><p>Aziraphale smiled but it was a smile that looked lost and scared and like it was ready to do a runner should any kind of opportunity present itself.</p><p>“No,” he said. “You never do, it seems. Or almost never, at least. That doesn’t mean that it’s okay for me to get angry.”</p><p>Crowley would disagree but did know better than to voice that out loud.</p><p>“If it comes to that, I haven’t exactly been…” Well, it seemed to be confessions day, and owning up to things he didn’t much want to, so he might as well get it all out there, mightn’t he? “…been treating the plants all too…gently.”</p><p>And wasn’t that putting it mildly. Not that it didn’t work, mind, or that he regretted what he’d done, but…</p><p>“No,” the angel agreed, “I could tell. They trembled when I first came over here to look at them. But you have taken care of them, and if you’ve been harsh with them to achieve that, you can certainly see the results.”</p><p>He let his gaze sweep slowly and obviously over the surrounding foliage and the lushness of it. What he did not do was change his expression while doing so or even when he turned back to look at the other. There was no judgment or admonishment, not in any real sense, which was…no, it wasn’t surprising, but even so, to not even have a gentle one was unexpected.</p><p>Enough so that Crowley suspected something else lay beneath it.</p><p>“You don’t have to be so excessively reasonable about it,” he said, “and definitely not because you think you reacted wrongly before.”</p><p>He tried to say it without sounding judgmental himself, at least as much as he could manage, aware that they were in a process of patching something up that had been ripped wide open only a very little while ago, with unexpected consequences, and not at all interested in making it worse.</p><p>Because he was well aware that his treatment of the plants, quite apart from what they’d been a part of and what they represented, was not something that Aziraphale, as an angel, would ever approve of.</p><p>That wasn’t to say Crowley felt he was doing anything wrong in his treatment of them. Not on the whole. Perhaps it could be done differently, and it wasn’t the way an angel would treat them, and definitely not his angel. But well, he couldn’t have them look miserable or even below par, could he? That would’ve added insult to injury, to say the least, and he would’ve felt even worse.</p><p>He might not be in the right, but he wasn’t in the wrong.</p><p>And yet, despite all of that, Aziraphale smiled at his comment, a smile more willing to stay put and tilt the corners of the mouth up properly than the last one.</p><p>“Quite,” he agreed. “And yet, I am. Because I think I just might understand at least some of the reasoning or at least thought behind the behaviour and I can’t say that I wouldn’t react similarly in the circumstances.”</p><p>“You wouldn’t. You’re an angel.”</p><p>The smile turned up a notch, the matching one in the warm blue eyes the tiniest bit mischievous and knowing.</p><p>“And you’re a demon who has enough thought and, more importantly, heart to make something as beautiful as this as his nest for that very angel. I can only imagine what the rest of it must’ve looked like if what’s left is this lovely.”</p><p>And now he had to be pulling his leg. It was a nice little alcove-style area, he’d grant that, and the plants were definitely looking their best – if they didn’t, after all, they knew what happened – but he wouldn’t say that it merited the description of ‘lovely’ and certainly not ‘beautiful’.</p><p>As he opened his mouth to protest the comment, however, Aziraphale beat him to it.</p><p>“I do believe that the one who gets to decide the descriptors for the given nest is the one the nest is made for, not the one it’s made by. Don’t you?”</p><p>“Ehm…yeah. Yeah, I guess, I – “</p><p>Aziraphale leaned closer but stopped just before he made full contact with the other’s lips. Crowley wasn’t having that, though. If they were still a nesting pair, and it seemed like they were, thank G – thank Sa – thank <em>somebody, </em>then he wasn’t going to leave his partner hanging or allow Aziraphale to leave him, Crowley, hanging.</p><p>So, he closed what distance there remained between them and pressed their lips together firmly. He didn’t take it any further, but that didn’t seem to bother the blond.</p><p>When they parted, it was Crowley who gathered Aziraphale to him, and though it wasn’t exactly with confidence, he still felt lighter than he had, his panic no longer threatening and his heart not going a hundred miles an hour, at least.</p><p>That said, Aziraphale made sure to wrap himself around the lanky body and Crowley wasn’t about to protest. He would never protest, in his whole existence.</p><p>His head had moved so his chin rested on Aziraphale’s shoulder before he was even encouraged to do that by the hand on the back of his head. Long arms slid underneath softer ones and met on the small of an equally soft and full back. It’d become one of his favourite places to rest his hands, if he was being completely honest.</p><p>“I was so afraid that if you saw the plants, if you knew what they were,” Crowley said after a few long and pleasant moments had passed, settled like that. His voice was only really audible because his mouth was so close to a corresponding ear. “That you would realise that I was – “</p><p>“Indeed to be categorised as pathetic and pitiful and that I would leave you because of it?” Aziraphale finished for him. “Oh, my dear, I thought we’d moved past – “</p><p>“That wasn’t what I was going to say.”</p><p>Even though he couldn’t see Aziraphale’s face from his current position, he could still hear his expression in the small ‘oh’ that he let out and the preceding intake of breath.</p><p>“I do apologise, dear, that was rude and domineering of me. What did you mean to say?”</p><p>“I meant to say that though I know you aren’t going to leave me – when my mind isn’t shrieking in panic, that is – “They shared a huff of laughter that owed little if anything to actual amusement. “– I was afraid that you would realise that I didn’t have the courage to take that plunge…that you would think less of me. Yes, that you’d think I was pathetic and a coward, too. That I couldn’t be trusted, either.”</p><p>He sighed, then turned his head into the neck a little more and inhaled the scent of his nestmate with gratefulness that he couldn’t properly put into words.</p><p>“A whole bunch of things, really,” he continued, “all thrown together into this gordian knot thing. Never that you’d leave me, though. I’ve learned that much. But I was afraid of what you’d see by looking at the remnants of my nest would damage things…and I’m rambling at this point.”</p><p>“Not really, no, and even if you were, dear, it’s perfectly understandable.”</p><p>“You’re using a lot of endearments again.”</p><p>“Am I not allowed to, dear?” The endearment at the end there was just the tiniest bit pointed, but it was the point of a stiletto. Not the shoe.</p><p>“Of course, you are. I’m just saying you are, and now I’m adding that you don’t use as many as that in such a short amount of time. Not unless you are trying to make a point.”</p><p>“A point of what?”</p><p>“Of assuring me that you’re still here. That everything is just as it was before and that it’s okay.”</p><p>He was guessing as much as anything, but it was fine. Things wouldn’t stop being challenging at times and there was still a lot of debris to sort out, both in Crowley’s own head and between them, but right now, right here, it was okay.</p><p>Everything was okay.</p><p>They would sort it out.</p><p>He placed a gentle kiss underneath a prominent but adorable ear before he spoke into it, softly.</p><p>“Perhaps I can persuade you to then gift me a feather for this?”</p><p>It was almost a murmur; more uncertainly asking than coquettish requesting.</p><p>Nevertheless, it had an immediate and clear effect on the angel. He didn’t quite tense up, but his muscles did tense a little bit, and a shiver ran through him, hard enough to almost transfer all the way into the body pressed up against him.</p><p>The angel turned his head and, due to the pure practicality of close proximity, pulled it back a little to be able to look at the other.</p><p>“You would…?” he began to ask, without actually finishing the question.</p><p>“Only if, if you’d be okay with it, of course,” Crowley said, and the words came out fast, almost tumbling over each other. “Otherwise, forget that I said anything. It’s a silly –”</p><p>The arms around him tightened at that, to the point that it would possibly have been painful for anyone who wasn’t a supernatural being, and even then, he felt just a little bit squashed. It definitely cut off whatever he’d been about to say.</p><p>“Please don’t say things like that. Of course, I’d be delighted to. More than delighted, in fact. I wasn’t certain whether you’d consider it enough of a nest that I could put one here without overstepping your boundaries – more than I seem to do already, of course - seeing as you haven’t put a feather here yourself – “</p><p>“Aziraphale. Breathe.”</p><p>For a split second, the angel looked mildly affronted. Then his expression cleared, and he smiled.</p><p>“I think it’s more than obvious why I haven’t put feathers here myself, don’t you?” Crowley said and though it was lower, it wasn’t a murmur, and he didn’t look away.</p><p>Small steps and all.</p><p>“Quite, my dear.” He kissed a visible cheekbone then the tip of the hooked nose, once, twice, three times before pulling away.</p><p>Crowley smiled and returned the gesture, kissing all the way up the upturned, big-buttoned nose to the middle of his brow, where he lingered.</p><p>Which got, of all things, and quite unexpectedly, what might be considered a small giggle.</p><p>He pulled away though only a little, as he took care to keep his arms on the other. At least on his hips.</p><p>Then, with a mumbled word of concentration, there was the noiseless sound of wings being unleashed from their metaphorical confines.</p><p>The gasp at the display and the look of wonder and joy in those blue eyes were somewhat surprising, considering that it was hardly the first time he saw them.</p><p>Nor were they that special. As wings went, they were fairly ordinary – and that wasn’t being self-deprecating, that was pure a point of fact.</p><p>They were, however, as well-groomed as they always were.</p><p>And regardless, Aziraphale was obviously quite fond of them, as he immediately reached out to run his hand carefully and gently, though not hesitantly this time, and touched the nearest feathers he could reach. Crowley helped him reach easier by curling his wings around him. Around them both.</p><p>“Go on, then,” the demon said after a little while. He moved the wing gently for emphasis.</p><p>Aziraphale stopped running his hand gently down over and over the feathers and looked up into yellow eyes. “It’s hardly me who’s supposed to take a feather, Crowley.”</p><p>“You’re the one who’s made the most of how we can choose which parts of the nesting ritual we want to follow, angel, not me,” Crowley pointed out. “And this isn’t the first nest, either. It’s a second one that isn’t even finished or in any fit state – “</p><p>Aziraphale raised his eyebrows and made a small but pointed noise of disagreement at that.</p><p>“– to function as a regular nest would,” the demon continued, unperturbed this time. “In that context, I think I’m allowed to say who gets to pluck the feather. It’s still my feather in my nest, anyway. So please, go on. Take one.”</p><p>The angel still hesitated. Crowley moved back up close and wrapped himself around him as effectively as he could with his feet still on the ground and his wings now outstretched for the best possible pick.</p><p>“Please.”</p><p>The crystal around his neck pushed against their pressed-together chests.</p><p>Blue eyes looked into yellow for a moment, two. Then the hand still on the feathers slid, reached inwards, slid a little further, grabbed and pulled.</p><p>Crowley winced automatically, his eyes closing. Then he blinked, in confusion more than anything.</p><p>Oddly, it didn’t hurt. There was a tingling and a slight sting but no actual pain. Not only that, it felt very familiar, as though –</p><p>He looked at the blond, who smiled and held up the feather he had taken.</p><p>The exact feather, if the demon wasn’t mistaken – and with the amount of time he had spent over the aeons grooming his own wings, he knew his feathers exceedingly well and so wouldn’t be mistaken – that he’d regrown for him after the ginger had pulled the reciprocating feathers out.</p><p>His expression must’ve said a lot because Aziraphale answered it.</p><p>“Call it, perhaps, a sense of continuity,” he said. “That and you did pick the prettiest of feathers for me. Which, I think, is entirely appropriate.”</p><p>Crowley made a noise of agreement, still somewhat shocked at the gesture. Shocked in a pleasant way but even so.</p><p>They weren’t done, of course.</p><p>He gently took the feather from the plump hand and held it cradled in both of his as he looked around. It needed to be placed somewhere but given the minimalist, to say the least, interior of his flat there weren’t a whole lot of options.</p><p>Especially not if he didn’t want somewhere that would be spotted by any intruders. He could, of course, angle the TV away from wherever he put it, but it needed to work even if they should show up.</p><p>Also, it really ought to have a connection to the nest-remnant, too, didn’t it?</p><p>He found his solution as he looked upwards. Somewhere safe, out of reach of anyone who might wish to touch it, harm it. Alleviating the worry, the fear he’d had about the feathers in the bookshop.</p><p>Of course, there wasn’t the same…throughput of people, to say the very least, so the risk was, well, really non-existent. That didn’t mean the fear didn’t need alleviating, obviously.</p><p>So, he blew on the feather, lightly but consistently. It flew upwards, up and up and up, to about three feet below the ceiling, where it hung, motionless, a glass bauble forming around it swiftly yet securely, attaching to the ceiling with a metal rod befitting of the rest of the décor.</p><p>That there was a small light in there, too, completely free of electricity yet pulsing warmly and just below brightly, was a small, irrelevant matter. It did light up the feather quite nicely, though and presented an attractive addition to the verdant greens around them, both on its own and in the way its gentle rays gave the green strips of an amber golden sheen.</p><p>“Oh, that is lovely. Do you do children’s parties as well?” Aziraphale asked after a few moments as a smile played around his lips. “You’d be quite the attraction.”</p><p>“No, I wouldn’t and even if I were, I wouldn’t go. You’re the one who spent time learning silly magic tricks dreamt up by humans,” Crowley replied. “I still don’t get why.”</p><p>Aziraphale flushed a little at that. “Well, that’s…that’s different. Entirely – there’s nothing wrong with a hobby.”</p><p>“I never said there was, did I? Only said I don’t get it, but then I don’t have to get it either, do I? I only just about get the books and even then, I don’t get how you can spend hours with the things.”</p><p>Blue eyes widened at that, indignancy rising. Then it thankfully seemed to click, and he relaxed.</p><p>“You’re – “</p><p>“Pulling your leg, yeah.” It might seem out of place, given what had gone before, but having said it helped to right himself mentally a little more and though it took more than that, of course, he was feeling better about things.</p><p>It felt…settled, somehow, if that made any sense.</p><p>They stayed like that for a while, just basking in each other and the resolution to the situation, glad to have made it through another navigational bump, together.</p><p>As the sun started to sink, Crowley remembered the food. He tried to gently tug the other back to the table and this time, Aziraphale went without a quibble.</p><p>When the angel sat down, it was in his designated chair, made for him, too. However, before the demon could slither into his own seat, he was pulled in turn and ended up sitting in Aziraphale’s lap.</p><p>“Angel!” he protested. There was no real heat to it, though.</p><p>“Sorry. Just wasn’t quite ready to let you go yet, I suppose. That and I…”</p><p>He paused, looking hesitant. Or at least, a little uncertain.</p><p>“I might’ve had an idea for…”</p><p>“Yes?”</p><p>“For perhaps feeding you a little.”</p><p>The way he phrased it, the tone of voice and the slight hesitation clued Crowley in that there was more to it than that. That, and the way his ribs and stomach was caressed was a bit of a clue, too. A clue-by-four, you might say.</p><p>“Oh.”</p><p>Should he have expected that? It wasn’t that he minded, quite the opposite, he just hadn’t expected it.</p><p>“Of course, if you don’t…”</p><p>Crowley shut him up by kissing him. “If it’s something you’d like to try, angel, then we can try it. Just say the word.”</p><p>“Not if it’s not a shared…no, not if it’s something you’re against. Then it’s not on.”</p><p>“A filling stomach and a few…sticky fingers playing around? What’s not to like about that?”</p><p>What indeed.</p><p>Above them, though not directly as they settled at the table, the glass globe hung, sending its light out to anyone who might want it.</p><p>Anyone who might need it.</p><p>A silent shout of connection and intent.</p><p>It wouldn’t stay alone in its bauble forever, either.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I know I could've probably cut this into two chapters and got them out sooner but...I didn't want to leave it all in the angry. I couldn't, after...<br/>Please be kind to this? I'm sorry if the quality isn't up to snuff.<br/>Thank you to the people still with me in what is turning out to be something of a small saga, at least for me, especially as I'm not quite done yet. Ideas keep popping up, unfortunately.<br/>All the best to you all. Stay safe.</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I am sorry this is again a short chapter to start off on, I'll do my best to make them longer from now on.<br/>I hope and pray that it doesn't feel like Crowley's regressed in this or that we're going over old ground again. Please stay with me and see, yeah?<br/>Sigh...will I ever stop being nervous here? Sorry.</p>
<p>Feedback is, as always, loved and cherished so long as criticism is constructive.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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